The Darkening Dream (17 page)

“There’s nothing wrong with rabbis. My father was one, and my mother’s father.”

“I think you should say to hell with it, throw yourself at Alex, and become a wanton woman.”

“Anne Elisabeth Williams,” Sarah said. “Don’t even say that. What if someone heard you?”

“You see anyone you know?” Anne asked. They were on Briggs, a quiet waterfront street close to their destination. “Besides, weren’t your parents a love match?”

“So they say,” she said. “They met when Papa moved to Prague to study with Grandpapa. But they’re both so sensitive about his death, I’ve never found out any details.”

Unbidden, the door of Judah’s room opened in Sarah’s memory. His tiny form lay in the bed, sweat beaded his sleeping face, little shudders rocked his body, tortured even in sleep.

Sarah blinked away her own budding tears. “After Judah died, the combined losses sucked some of the joy out of Mama.”

Anne nodded. “I can’t even think about my parents dying. Or even Sam and Emily, as much as they annoy me.”

For a few minutes they strolled in silence.

“Isn’t this the house we’re looking for?” Anne said.

She’d stopped at a typical red brick and white trimmed Salem Federalist. The girls walked up the short stairs onto a columned porch and rapped the leonine door-knocker. A thin elderly lady in an old-fashioned dark dress opened the door.

“May I help you, girls?” Her voice was scratchy and her expression wary.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Sarah said. “Are you Mrs. Catherine Stuart?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“My name’s Sarah Engelmann, and this is my friend Anne Williams—”

“We’re doing a school report,” Anne said, “on the history of the Collins Cove neighborhood. My mother is friends with your daughter, and she — my mother, I mean — she said you know just
everything
about the area and are full of all sorts of
delightful
stories. She thought you’d be just the
best
source of information for us. So we brought you this cherry pie.” She held it up.

“Of course I remember little Lizzy Williams,” Mrs. Stuart said. “Come in, come in. I do love a nice pie.”

Sarah was glad Anne had stolen her introduction. She could never have pulled off that girlish enthusiasm.

Mrs. Stuart ushered them into her parlor before retreating to the kitchen with the box.

“Your mother was a Lizzy?” Sarah said.

“It’s the
little
part I find hard to imagine.”

The old woman returned carrying a tray with three neatly plated pie slices, drinking glasses, and a milk bottle.

“So, what is it you’d like to know about the neighborhood? I know just
everybody
.”

“Our report is on how recent immigrant arrivals have affected things,” Anne said.

“For the worse, dears, for the worse,” Mrs. Stuart said. “I know you Williams are old Salem stock like the Stuarts. All these new folk are just a
stain
on the town. It’s unsavory. I mean, they don’t speak English and they pack five families into a house that should properly have only one.”

Sarah examined her pie. The dessert smelled lovely, but she really wasn’t supposed to eat it. Explaining this to Mrs. Stuart was going to be impossible. And what if the dire portents in her dreams came true? Was she ready to die without tasting “Lizzy’s” cherry pie? Mama was a great cook, but cherry pie wasn’t in her repertoire.

She took a bite. It was good, really good. She hoped the richness in the crust was butter instead of lard. Hopefully God would forgive her minor slip-ups. She
was
trying to fight hideous evil for Him, after all.

In the meantime Anne was cooing her way through the conversation.

“I know, Mrs. Stuart, and some of them aren’t even Christians.” She nudged Sarah with her knee. “Or worse, papists.”

“The Catholics with their intemperate ways and their gussied up churches — don’t get me started.”

Anne didn’t. “Mrs. Stuart, recently I heard that some people came to Salem from really far off places.”

“Well, now, there’s this enormous Russian family just down the street. They must have twenty children living in one house. Or do you mean the Chinamen?”

“How about even stranger? What about colored people, not from the South but from somewhere really exotic.”

Anne was good. The rat man had mentioned Negros.

Mrs. Stuart lowered her voice. “We do have that odd fellow in the white clapboard on Webb Street. I don’t think he’s a Negro himself, brown with a funny pointed beard, a tiny little man. He doesn’t have a family — they do often send the menfolk over first — but he has these big Negro fellows working for him. I’ve never seen the like.”

“You don’t say,” Anne said. “The Negros are foreign too?”

“And big as houses, with shaved heads. And
swords
!” Mrs. Stuart said.

“Swords?” Sarah said, spraying a few pie crumbs.

“They look like darkies from an
Arabian Nights
picture-show. No shirts, funny vests, and big curved blades.”

“Part of a theater company, I expect,” Anne said.

Eighteen:

Dinner Invitation

Salem, Massachusetts, Friday evening, November 7, 1913

A
LEX HELPED HIS GRANDFATHER
dress for dinner. The old man looked better, his skin tighter about his flesh. He even lifted his arms to help with his shirt.

“You had something to eat?” Alex said in Greek.

“Just a light bit of goat.” The old man spoke in English, presumably practicing for dinner.

Dmitri’s roast goat hardly qualified as light.

“Don’t embarrass us tonight,” Alex said. “Sarah is smart, perceptive—”

“When a young man warns his elders how to behave, that spells trouble. You like this girl.” Constantine smiled, showing his yellow teeth.

“Maybe. I will say I haven’t met a woman like her before.”

“Plow the field where you like, that’s a young man’s prerogative. But take care where you plant your seed. Our bloodline—”

“Please, Grandfather, can we skip the lineage lecture tonight? No one cares about bloodlines anymore, not in America.”

Grandfather gripped his arm. On this subject, he was like a dog in the manger.

“Alexandros, this is no insignificant matter, nor is it one of my eccentricities.” He’d switched back to Greek. “This is a duty you inherit from your forefathers. Eventually, you must marry well and produce a male heir.”

Alex sighed. “You know, if you actually told me
why
, perhaps I might take it more seriously.”

“For now, you must trust me. Remember the last time you dallied with a girl.”

“I’ve stood next to Sarah in the sunlight, so I hardly think it can be
that
bad. But I have a question for you, Grandfather. When one vampire makes another, do they call it ‘the dark gift’?”

The older man’s gaze could’ve punched holes in Alex’s skull.

“Who told you this, Alexandros?”

“Sarah.”

“Clever girl. How’d she know?”

Alex shrugged. “Probably read it. She reads a lot.”

“That’s not something one finds in books,” Grandfather said. “Vampires too have their gods, but theirs is a dark covenant: blood for life. When the blood of a vampire is ingested by someone, and they die soon after, they are said to receive this ‘dark gift’ and rise again, undead.”

“I’ll make a point to avoid dying.”

The pain that crossed his grandfather’s face made him wish he hadn’t made light of the subject. But then it seemed to Alex that this sadness was something more profound.

“Are you thinking about Grandmother?” he said.

“To see your love slain before your eyes is the worst kind of fate…”

Alex thought again of Maria’s lips and felt a rare moment of kinship with the old man.

“But back to the dark gift.” Grandfather pointed a long finger at him. “What aren’t you telling me about your Sarah?”

Alex liked the way that sounded,
your Sarah
. Still, he should never have brought up the topic.

“That body we found three weeks ago, the boy? It was undead. It rose from the grave.”

Grandfather’s gnarled hands gripped the handles of his wheelchair. Alex had a peculiar feeling, as if he’d taken off his shirt during mass and everyone turned his way.

“You don’t say.” The old voice coiled to strike. “Your tone betrays a cockerel’s pride.”

“My friends and I took care of it. And yes, if you must know, it went very well.”

“Foolish to involve them. You should have approached Dmitri.”

“I can’t always rely on you and Dmitri. No matter, the fiend is dead twice over. I even boiled the head in garlic and holy water.”

“So you’re a big game hunter now, having slain this fledgling? What of its maker? Will you and your friends be a match for one who’s prepared, one who’s not insane with the hunger?”

“We know what we’re doing.” Far from true, but pride
was
on the line. “We’re getting closer to the maker.”

“Are you?” The old man raised an eyebrow. “You’ve tracked the beast to its lair?”

“Well, we know he arrived last winter, and his
thralls
are blackamoors.”

Energy gathered in his grandfather like the crowd before an execution. Ten years rolled off his face.

“You’ve caught an eel by its tail! You’re not ready for al-Nasir.”

Years had passed since Alex had seen him so excited. A distant memory surfaced: Grandfather, much younger, his hair only touched by silver, taking a long sword from the lintel of a door. Sharp jabs of pain lanced Alex’s temples.

“Al-na-who?” he asked. “You know the creature?”

“Last I heard he was in Morocco. I didn’t think they would send one such as he.”

“
They
?” Alex said. Grandfather hoarded secrets like the Vatican hoarded relics. “I thought we came here to leave vampires behind. To start anew. What—”

“Desire and duty are different things,” the old man said. “But yes, I knew one had been sent. It bodes poorly if it’s al-Nasir.”

“Is he the oldest vampire?” Alex asked.

“No, not
him
, praises be. But al-Nasir is formidable enough. Far older and more powerful than any you’ve known. He will drain you dry and crunch your bones beneath his boots.”

Grandfather turned the chair and rolled it across the study — vigorous exercise — then opened the baroque cabinet with twisting columns carved like kneeling slave boys. He removed something from the boule coffer he unlocked with a key around his neck, then rolled back to Alex and offered him a silver wolf’s head medallion, its eyes set with rubies the color of pigeon blood.

“Wear this — at all times, Alexandros, all times. It will not help you conquer this monster but it may protect you from him and his minions.”

Alex slipped the leather thong over his head and tucked the amulet under his shirt.

“What can you tell me about this al-Nasir?” he asked.

“If you swear on the soul of your blessed mother to abandon this quest, I’ll tell you something of him.”

“I swear.” Aeschylus had said God was not opposed to deceit in service of righteousness.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Grandfather said. “The creature is most likely Ali ibn Hammud al-Nasir, sixth Caliph of Córdoba. He died on the twenty-second of March, 1028.”

Blessed Jesus, almost a millennium ago.

“Spanish, then?”

Grandfather shrugged. “In life he was a Moor, probably of Berber origin.
Ghazi
, a fanatical defender of Allah. Although we can be certain he no longer walks in Allah’s light, literally or figuratively.”

“You seem to know a lot about him,” Alex said.

“I know what books tell of the man he was. But any creature that has survived nine hundred years of nights is
not
to be trifled with.”

“Consider me impressed,” Alex said. “Why is he here?”

“I’m not certain,” Grandfather said, “but I received word that an old vampire had arranged to cross the Atlantic. A life defended for centuries is not lightly risked. If the one you found is truly the Caliph, it would be unprecedented. Legend describes him as a crafty robber of temples and tombs, most zealous in his pursuits.”

“So what do we do?” Alex asked.

“
We
do nothing. Come, the sun has set. We’ll be late for this
Shabbos
dinner of yours.”