The Last Vampire (18 page)

She wasn’t Shakespeare’s Dark Lady, but she had known the girl. The story of her mother, Lamia, had inspired Greek mythology. It had emerged in the seventeenth-century
Anatomy of Melancholy
and the whispered legends of Lamia had inspired John Keats’s
Lamia and Other Poems
in 1820.

There were many Keepers, but Miriam and her parents had been more influential in human affairs than any of the others.

And now she was the friend and lover of a humble doctor from Queens, whose highest ambition should probably be to make her happy and keep her safe. Instead, Sarah was caught in an eerie web, unable to believe that Miriam had the right to kill, but also unable to do anything but serve her.

In a year, a Keeper took perhaps twenty lives. Sarah herself took ten . . . and each squirming, weeping victim consumed part of her heart. After a murder, she would weep for days. She would resolve to quit. She would renew her efforts to find a way of feeding on blood-bank blood.

Sarah returned with the vodka and served Miriam a second drink. “I wish I could comfort you,” she murmured. “I know something’s wrong, something more than just the flight. Please tell me what it is.”

Miriam knocked back the drink. “Five thousand dollars a seat and still I cannot smoke.”

“You can in the car.” She glanced up at the map that was set into the bulkhead. They were traveling at Mach 2, just passing over the Irish coast. “Just two more hours, madame.”

“Why are you calling me that?”

“Because you seem so regal today.”

Miriam took her chin and turned her head until they were sitting like two intimate girls, face-to-face, their noses almost touching. “I have been through unbelievable hell. And I am angry, Sarah. I am angry at you.”

“I know you are.” She’d gone to spend a few days in the Berkshires, away from the club, away from Miriam’s demands. She had not taken her cell phone.

“Love, if I can’t count on you, who can I count on?”

Sarah felt her cheeks grow hot, as they had in the hotel room when she’d been bathing Miriam and had seen the rough areas and angry blushing of her skin. That was healing trauma. Because Sarah knew the power of Keeper blood to overcome injury, she was aware that Miriam had suffered fearsome damage.

“Tell me what happened, love.”

Miriam turned her face to the window.

Sarah touched the black silk arm of her blouse, but Miriam said nothing more.

Very well. Sarah had learned to accept Miriam’s moods. “You look so extraordinary in those clothes,” she offered, gently flattering her, hoping to win a more full response. There was none.

Whatever had happened in Paris, at least it had brought those archaic Chanels to an end. They had gone to Maria Luisa and gotten some delicious Eric Bergère designs. Miriam had been extremely compliant at the shop, spending twenty thousand dollars without complaint, and revealing truly wonderful taste and an extraordinary awareness of what might flat-ter her the most.

Sarah gazed at her. She was so splendid that you never got tired of looking at her, and in that fabulous black blouse of sheer silk with a bloodred satin body shirt beneath — well, the effect was almost perfect. The way it held her breasts high and suggested her curves was marvelous. This ensemble had been created by a hand that loved and understood the female form.

“I was nearly killed.”

Sarah leaned close to her, kissed her cold cheek, laid her lips there a long time, until she felt her body tickling within itself, lusting for the quick finger, the deep tongue. “Don’t say that if it isn’t true.”

Miriam bridled at the statement. “How dare you!”

“I’m sorry! I — just — please forgive me.”

Miriam leaned back,closed her eyes.“Is the passport going to be all right?”

“Perfect.”

“Why so?”

She had asked this about the passport ten times. It was a perfect passport because it belonged to a real person. “Leonore is a master of disguise,” Sarah said.

“Leonore,” she said. “Do you think she would be a good meal?”

“Miriam, you know I don’t find that sort of thing funny.”

“Maybe she’ll replace you, then, and you’ll be the meal.” She smiled that slight, fetching smile that looked so innocent and concealed such danger. “That might be best.”

She was truly a mistress of verbal torture. “I would open my own veins for you,” Sarah said.

“I suppose so.” Miriam’s voice was leached of emotion. “You’re certain of the passport?”

“Look at it. It’s you.”

The instant Sarah had understood that Miriam was without a passport, she’d gone down to the Veils, where Leonore was supervising the cleaning crew, and gotten her to make herself up to resemble Miriam. A slightly fuzzy passport photo had been taken to an expediter with a two-hundred-dollar fee and a thousand-dollar bribe. Miriam’s new passport — in the name of Leonore Patton — was in Sarah’s hand by five that afternoon. The next morning, Sarah had come over on the Concorde to rescue their distressed lady. That was yesterday.

Word had passed through the upper echelons of New York society that something untoward had happened to Miriam in Paris.

The whole club was in vigil, CEOs, aristocrats, celebrities, the brilliant and the beautiful. There would be a hundred of the most fashionable people in New York waiting to greet the queen when her plane landed.

“Please tell me what happened.”

Miriam’s eyes met hers. Sarah forced herself not to look away, but Miriam was certainly furious. “In good time,” she said.

“I wish you could be at peace.”

“I cannot be at peace.”

Miriam’s hand came into hers. Her eyes became like penetrating needles. “You remember I have spoken of Martin Soule,” she said slowly, evaluating Sarah, trying to look into her mind.

“He inspired Baroness Orczy. He was the real Scarlet Pimpernel.”

Quick as a flash, Miriam’s iron fingers were crushing Sarah’s wrist. “You’re not sad,” she snarled.

“I’m scared! What’s happening?”

“I ought to put you back in the attic with the others, you ungrateful
bitch!
”

“Miriam?”

Miriam released her wrist, tossing it away from her with a contemptuous gesture.

“Miriam, please tell me what’s wrong!”

“My French has become archaic,” she snapped. “I want a teacher standing before me at ten tomorrow morning. Ten exactly.”

“Yes,”Sarah said, aware that her voice was shaking badly,“a teacher at ten.”

There was a silence, during which the jet shuddered slightly. “I needed you, Sarah, and you weren’t there for me.”

Sarah closed her eyes. Tears swam out beneath the lids.

“You weep for me?”

Sarah nodded. “You’re the love of my life.”

“And yet you ignore the emergency number. You love me, but you want me dead, Sarah. That’s the truth of it.”

“I don’t want you dead.”

“You’ve hated me ever since I gave you my blood.” Her lips curled. “The gift of eternal life!”

“You ought to have asked me.”

“You’re an idiot, Sarah.” Then, unexpectedly, she smiled. “But I do enjoy you. You’re such a scientist!”

“You’re a murderer, Miriam.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“And I love you, too.”

Miriam said, “The vodka’s warm.”

Sarah got up like a robot and moved down the aisle. The faces of the other passengers seemed vividly alive, their cheeks rich with blood. Sarah knew that this was an early sign of her own hunger. In a week, she would need to feed again. She’d try to stave it off, as she always did, with the blood she bought from the little blood bank on Thirtieth Street.

“I need a colder bottle,” she said to the steward.

“Of course, mademoiselle.” He drew a new one out of the refrigeration unit in his cart, put the old one in.

She took it back to their seats and poured Miriam another drink, then sat down. “I want to help you,” she said.

“You’re dangerously incompetent.”

“I’m the best you’ve got!”

“For the while,” Miriam said, her voice almost indifferent, as if the subject was no more than dull.

A shock passed through Sarah. “If you’d tell me what I’ve done — ”

“I called you and called you.”

“You’ve told me that fifty times! But you have to tell me what happened. Why did you need me? Why are we running like this? Miriam, for the love of God, what’s happening?”

The pitch of the engines changed, followed by the angle of approach. “Finally,” Miriam said, “you agree that you’ve proved yourself hopelessly incompetent.”

Sarah nodded.

“So you agree that I can’t take the risk of relying on you.”

Sarah nodded again, and this time tears sprayed her breast. “Miriam, no matter what you decide —”

“It’s decided.”

“At a time like this, you need me. Whatever it is, I can help. I can correct my mistakes and do better.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“You’re being chased. We’ve got to get you out of the house. Hide you.”

“Do we?”

The plane roared, made a steep turn into its final approach. “It’s all right,” Sarah said automatically, “everything’s fine.”

The steward reminded them to place their seat backs upright and fasten their seat belts. He came past and collected the vodka. “Will Madame be wanting a wheelchair?” he asked.

“Mademoiselle will not,” Miriam said.

A short time later, the plane was drawing up to the gate. The moment it stopped, Sarah stepped into the aisle in order to prevent any passengers behind them from pushing past Miriam or impeding her way.

As far as the world knew, two resplendently beautiful young women stepped off the plane, one discreetly attentive to her companion, who walked with her cool gray eyes fixed to the middle distance, emeralds and gold glowing around her neck, a wide-brimmed Philippe Model hat on her head. The other girl might have been a friend, slightly less wealthy, or even an indulged secretary or servant. Indulged, because she was so well kept herself, with her superbly tailored green
peau de soie
suit and her fashionably tousled hair.

They passed through customs with the easy indifference of people so powerful that such things did not matter to them. The officers were quick, discreet. “Welcome home, Dr. Roberts; welcome back, Miss Patton.”

When they appeared in the Concorde Lounge, there was a discreet spatter of applause. Miriam slowed, then stopped, then turned. She raised a gloved hand, smiled. Nobody who did not know the truth could possibly have imagined, not for an instant, that she was anything but a girl — a girl with wise eyes, but still a girl.

She stepped forward into the richly dressed crowd.

They surrounded her, kissing her cheeks, touching her as children do a mother they have not seen in a very long time. In each pair of eyes was the same regard, the same awe. Sarah watched this with the dispassion of a captive. Most of them probably thought of her only as the sparkling mistress of the most exclusive club in all of the Americas, a secret, exquisite club, a place where the most powerful of people could express their true selves without shame or restraint, where there were no restrictions . . . once you had passed the door. Some few knew part of the truth, the whispered reality of Miriam.

Only Leonore Patton was entirely certain of the truth. Leonore was being brought along. She was being educated. Sarah knew that Miriam planned to infuse Leo with her blood. Now she wondered if she herself would be killed or set adrift on her own?

People murmured around them, expressing happiness to see Miriam — some familiar faces, others less so — while Sarah anguished inside over what was taking place.

Some were staring with the mixture of fascination and horror that the true insiders shared, the ones who knew to be thrilled but also terrified when she swept them into some dark corner of the Veils, and kissed their necks in a moment of tipsy excess.

Miriam went to a young Latino — a kid she had marked as an upcoming star — and kissed him, brushing his cheek with the rough tip of her tongue. Miriam was never wrong about such things as stars. Carlos Rivera would certainly become one. So, for that matter, would Kirsten Miller who stood beside him, her careful, beautiful face radiating intelligence.

Then Miriam was finished with them, speeding out with Sarah behind her. Luis, their driver, came up to take the bags that others had conducted through customs. Inner New York, secret New York, had been waiting for nothing but her return. Now the delicious terror could continue. Was she going to feed? Would it be some forgotten soul, ready for death? Or someone who deserved it — one she had judged in her correct and careful way? If so, would it be one they knew, perhaps some garish magnate who had tried to lie his way past the Veils? If it was, then who must they carefully fail to notice was missing, who next?

“One of my shorts paid off,” Sarah said after Luis had pulled into traf-fic and Miriam had settled back with a cigarette.

“How much?”

“It was BMC Software. We made thirty-three percent.”