by Wilson, Eric
The curtains closed. The kite rested.
As day broke, the Collector was taken hostage by slumber.
THE SECOND DROP:
REFUGEES
Thus are we ministers of God’s own wish: that the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him.
—Bram Stoker, Dracula
They are not only dead but doubly dead, for they have been pulled out by the roots.
—Jude 1:12
Journal Entry
June 22
Even though I’m tired, I feel sort of excited. It’s like I’ve lived through the stories contained in that first red stain. At first it confused me. Why, for example, were there scenes from multiple sources? Is there a collective memory that connects everyone?
I finally realized that first droplet must’ve come from Ariston. He’d been marked in the grave by Judas’s blood, and grabbed the memories of others by drinking from their veins—or, in Gina’s case, by wringing blood from her tattered clothes. He’s among Those Who Hunt, but is he the one looking for me? Is he the one who sent me the envelope, trying to flush me into the open?Still, I’m not sure about the purpose of the old map.
Even though I’m told I’ll be in danger if I leave Lummi’s shores, I am considering it. I want answers. Sure, it’s beautiful here. I mean, I love to watch the storm clouds that roll in from the Pacific, and there’s nothing better than gathering shells and driftwood from the beach. But I’m lonely all on my own.
After a dreary walk through today’s rain, I decided to taste the second drop.Whose memories would I find?
It wasn’t as revolting this time. It was almost sweet, in fact. But that didn’t last for long.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Early October 1996—Chattanooga, Tennessee
“Look all you want,” said Gina Lazarescu, “but I’m taken.”
Tall and slender, she slipped into the line at Rembrandt’s Coffee House. She avoided eye contact with the alpha males at the corner table. They sat back, arms crossed over their UT–Chattanooga T-shirts, and traded remarks that were meant to attract her attention yet only underlined her negative evaluation of them.
She sighed and grabbed a menu. Despite the occasional annoyances, she liked the new look and the attention it garnered.
Seven years had gone by . . .
In late 1989, mother and daughter had escaped before Romania’s bloody revolution and bunkered down in various Eastern European safe houses. With the help of one of Cal’s ambassador friends, they’d arrived at Chicago O’Hare Airport early the next year, valid visas in hand, and migrated south to Chattanooga’s warmer climate. They seemed to have eluded whatever forces sought their demise.
Of course, they had abandoned the last name Murgoci and now bore passports with the name of Lazarescu.
A new name for new beginnings.
Despite the fear of discovery—which had at last begun to ebb—they still used the nicknames Nikki and Gina. With Gina’s interest in such matters, she had learned that even the Federal Witness Protection Program left most peoples’ first names intact. In a country of three hundred million citizens, chances of detection were minimal.
But it wasn’t until last year, until her graduation from Lookout Valley High, that Gina had cut loose of Nicoleta’s hold with a symbolic makeover.
Gina’s unruly chestnut mop, once her nemesis, was now trimmed to shoulder length, with one orange-tinted wave that swept across her fore-head and half covered her left eye. Her thick lashes and bronze skin made makeup unnecessary. A webbed, black choker covered the scar on her neck, while black boots hid other scars and symbolized her militant approach toward any who tried to corral her.
Particularly those who used religion as their cattle prod.
She wasn’t one for living in the past, and she refused to grovel in Nicoleta’s mystical slop while continuing to “pay” for her own sins.
She’d been there, done that. Had the hip waders to go with it.
In a final show of emancipation, Gina had visited a tattoo parlor two weeks ago. Her lower back was still tender, and she’d been saving its unveiling for her mother’s visit today. Only twenty-one minutes from now.
Ahead of her in the café line, a pair of tongue-wagging socialites carried on at full volume, staging a performance for the corner alphas.
Pink Tennis Visor: “Girl, you wanna know what I think? You need to dump him and find yourself a man who’s gonna treat you right. I mean, really—he’s still borrowing Mom and Dad’s SUV. Hello.”
Blue Eyeliner: “Like, I’m so over him anyway.”
“Are you gonna tell him that, or do I have to?”
“I’ll do it. I’m not completely helpless, you know. But there’s that thing Friday night, and he is paying my way.”
“Unless someone else wants to step up.”
Gina tried not to roll her eyes. Could these two be any more obvious?
She turned her gaze to the outdoor patio, where groups of students and businesspeople chatted at tables. A sedan was parallel parking on High Street. Down the hill, school buses would soon be lining up for the newly opened IMAX theater at the Tennessee Aquarium.
Years had gone by . . .
And still she could not shake free of her occasional dread.
Were there things still out to get her? What if they’d traced her movements across the Atlantic? She never spoke to her mother about such matters. In fact, they barely spoke at all. It all seemed so unreal here in this land of freedom.
What about Cal? Did he know where she was?
Gina touched her earrings, the ones with the red ruby orbs, and took comfort in the inane yet persistent belief that the Provocateur was keeping watch. He had made her a promise on that last night in Romania, and she clung to it. Most likely, it was nothing.
Regardless, as she shuffled forward in the coffee line, she caressed the memory with a glimmer of hope. One colorful shard from her jagged tableau.
Seven Years Earlier—Borsa
“I’ll carry her,” Cal was saying.
“No, I don’t want her pampered. She can handle her own weight.”
“Nikki, I said I’d carry her.”
They were parked in a small garage, maybe a toolshed. After pulling off the road for Gina’s bloodletting, they had returned to Borsa and rushed to this alley tucked behind a bakery. Gina was awake, arm still throbbing, eyes burning with tears that she refused to let flow.
“Don’t worry,” Nicoleta said to the Provocateur. “You did what had to be done, and I’m certain Gina won’t blame you. She’s quite impervious to it.”
“Sure. I bet she is.”
Cal came to the passenger-side door. His arms slipped beneath Gina’s petite frame, cradling her.
She stiffened, bit her lip, and looked off over his shoulder as he trundled across a gravel drive and up three flights of stairs into an apartment that smelled of concrete and fresh wood shavings. He set her on a couch covered with a knitted shawl. His hand brushed her forehead, and gold-flecked eyes danced there with interest.
She felt self-conscious. She’d feared that the recent appearance of the translucent markings would elicit ridicule from the kids of Cuvin—though it hadn’t happened that way—and she’d been wearing her hair long to hide it.
As he withdrew his fingers, they caught in her long locks.
“Sorry,” he said.
For this brief entanglement? Or for the inflicted wound? Gina wasn’t sure, so she pulled the shawl over her arm and said nothing.
“You and your mother, you’ve gotta lay low here a coupla days,” he continued. “Then a friend of mine’ll take you guys someplace safe. I’m leaving now. Guess the dragon lady doesn’t want me sticking around. But you’re gonna be okay, you hear me, Gina? I know you feel small, like you’re no one important, but that’s not true.” He leaned in, his breath a gust of winter cold. “Not a word of this to your mom, you swear? Just bet
ween you and me, I promise that one day, when it’s the right time, I’ll track you down again.”
“How?”
“You like the earrings I gave you?”
She nodded. “Thank you. I like them.”
“Just keep wearing them,” he said, “and I’ll find you. Somehow. Someway.”
She tucked her chin beneath the shawl. There was no use in letting him see her emotion. Through that one simple gift she felt connected to this man, and wondered if he bore lines on his forehead, as well. What was the meaning of the symbol? Or was it nothing more than a strange skin permeation? She was afraid to ask, fearful of going under the blade again.
“Okay,” she said.
“Atta girl. Now, grab a few winks while you’ve got the chance.”
Chattanooga
Seven years had gone by. Not a word, not one.
Gina released her vain hope, letting Cal’s features fade until she saw only the brass and polish of Rembrandt’s Coffee House. She was still stuck in the line behind the socialites.
Blue Eyeliner: “Oh look, it’s our turn. Like I have any clue what I want.”
Pink Tennis Visor: “Omigosh. You have got to try the baklava.”
“Is that, like, even American?”
Gina touched her tongue to the backs of her bottom teeth, counting, as a form of stress reduction. She figured it was healthier and cheaper than the random drags she took from friends’ cigarettes. For each tooth, she had to think of one person upon whom she could bestow an act of kindness. She’d developed this method during later encounters with her mother’s dagger. It’d also come in handy while living with Jed, her boy-friend of the past fourteen months.
Fourteen. The number of her pearly whites, divided by two. Also, the number of minutes till her mother arrived.
Let’s see. Lower left molar? One act of kindness . . .
Gina resorted to the obvious: dropping dollar bills into the tip jar before pushing outside with her triple vanilla latte.
She found her attention drawn toward a man on the other side of the street. His hair was flaxen, almost the color of wheat. He was walking away. She hurried her strides beneath her ruffled skirt.
Could it be . . . ?
From the direction of the Hunter Museum of American Art, a dingy delivery van bore down on her as she crossed the pavement. Autumn leaves swirled in its wake, deep yellow and auburn.
The driver was squinting into the sun, and by the time Gina realized he couldn’t see her, it was too late. The front grille caught and catapulted her up over the hood in a plume of coffee froth, sprayed crimson, and orange-streaked hair. She came down hard, skull cracking against the pavement amid the sprawl of contorted limbs.
She was wrapped for burial in strips of white linen. Her arms were pressed against her sides, and her ribs sagged. Like a rabbit tensed and motionless in the snow, in that moment before flight, her heart paused.
Everything slowed. Her pulse. Her breathing.
Cold. Icy cold . . .
A tingling, muted and far-off. Vibrations, felt only through the soles of her feet. Then a jolt, followed by the sounds of lightning and tumbling rock. Quaking earth. And fabric rending.
A cry of final release: It is finished.
That dying prayer on her lips,
fading,
fading . . .
Then a touch. Blood in her mouth. Moisture on a parched tongue.
Gina swallowed out of reflex, and began shaking, convulsing. Her eyelids peeled back, and light stabbed through her pupils. She thought she saw someone there, and she reached out—but the image faded.
Warmth followed. And sizzling heat . . .
Her heart squeezed within her rib cage, pushing life back through her arteries. Though she had no recollection of how she’d arrived at this spot near the curb, she knew she didn’t belong here. She pushed herself up. Felt knuckles scrape the pavement, turning black with oil and grime.
She was on her knees. She tried to stand.
Collapsed.
She wobbled back to her feet and faced an unknown figure.
The Grim Reaper? Coming to steal her away?
She pushed and clawed at him. The man cried out, begging for her attention, her forgiveness—I swear, I didn’t see you there—and insisting that she sit and wait for the paramedics.
But she wasn’t going to succumb so easily, no.
She shoved away from the delivery driver and stumbled down High Street. Habit propelled her across an overpass, up a slight hill, to an apartment building. She stood in the lobby and stared at elevator buttons. Numbers ran from 1 to 7, and her eyes narrowed upon one in particular.
Was this where she lived?
Maybe it was a clever facade, a halfway house for the dead. This could be the tour’s starting point, leading from an earthly residence and working forward—or upward, downward, whatever—to a more permanent location.
Hi, my name is Gina. I’ll be your guide as we descend into the bowels of the earth. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
“Where am I?”
She got no answer from her reflection in the metal doors.
Swaying on the heels of her boots, she felt her head swim. Twin jets of hot water seemed to course down her spine, massaging the lower curve of her back and easing vertebrae back into place. Her muscles turned mushy. Everything blurred.
“Regina?”
The hand on her shoulder startled her.
“Stop the tour,” Gina said. “I want to get off.”
Nicoleta pushed the elevator button. “You’re hurt. Let’s get you upstairs.”
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Arad, Romania
The Collectors met in the calm of dusk.
Erota, true to form, had done her homework about this meeting place: the Cetatea Aradului, the Arad Fortress. For ages, Arad had been a passageway between east and west, and this site had been completed in 1783 with Vauban-style embattlements. Shaped like the Star of David and situated in a loop of the Mures River, the Cetatea’s six points formed a prickly line of defense.
Ariston shot Erota a look. “Are we all here, ready to begin?”
“Let me double-check.”
She peered over fashionable sunglasses, shifting her eyes between the Collectors and the list in hand. With her calculating mind and attention to detail, she’d been assigned this evening’s secretarial duties. Attendance was mandatory at these biannual gatherings—seventeen remaining revenants, from two houses, the entire cluster.
House of Ariston:
1. Ariston—cluster leader, Syrian household leader, husband, father
2. Shelamzion—Ariston’s first wife, mother of Sol, Shalom, and
Salome (deceased)
3. Sol—Ariston and Shelamzion’s adult son
4. Shalom—Ariston and Shelamzion’s teen daughter
5. Helene—Ariston’s second wife, mother of Natira (whereabouts unknown), sister of Dorotheus (House of Eros)
6. Auge—Sol’s wife, Kyria’s mother, daughter of Dorotheus (House of Eros)
7. Kyria—Sol and Auge’s young daughter
8. Nehemiah—Ariston’s brother, Shabtai’s father
9. Shabtai—Nehemiah’s teen son
10. Matrona—Nehemiah’s young daughter
11. Barabbas—Ariston’s attendant House of Eros:
House of Eros:
1. Eros—Grecian household leader, father of Erota and Domna
2. Hermione—Eros’s sister
3. Dorotheus—mother of Eros, Hermione, and Auge (married into House of Ariston), sister of Helene (also married into House of Ariston)
4. Megiste—Eros’s former mistress, household priestess
5. Domna—Eros’s youngest teen daughter
6. Erota—Eros’s oldest teen daughter
She ticked off her own name. “All accounted for.”
“Come along then,” Ariston said. “Beneath these bunkers are underground bulwarks, where we can speak
without inviting notice. Facilis descensus Averno.”
As Erota echoed the cluster motto along with the others, she visualized those words snapping like storm flags against the bruised apricot sky, signaling trouble and turbulence and the tenderizing effect of gale-force winds upon the unsuspecting.
In the years since their release, this cluster had relished their activity as revenants—dead bodies reanimated and dependent upon blood for survival.
After ascending from the Field of Blood, the House of Eros had immigrated to Ukraine, and the House of Ariston had settled here in Arad.
Ariston, taking the lead, had sold his jeweled armband from the tombs as down payment on a forsaken vineyard just east of Lipova. Erota and the others had immersed themselves, too, in cultural, financial, and linguistic dealings. All had managed to procure for themselves nondescript lodgings and functional false identities.
Erota still found it remarkable what could be done with the aid of Collector-hosting humans. Though armed with the Power of Choice, some seemed willing and even eager to sell their souls for any semblance of significance. Such hosts were particularly easy to come by in bureacratic circles—busy little bees, swarming to the sticky sweetness of money and power.
All of this made it easier, of course, for the Akeldama Cluster.
They embodied those long-fabled traits of the vampire: pointed incisors and unquenchable thirst; a narcissistic disregard for other life-forms; a chill in the bones, which, if not alleviated by ingested blood, left a chalky pall on the skin . . .
Erota had discovered differences, as well.
She loved garlic, for example—was there anything more tasty than a bowl of goulash? Her mirror was a close friend that never failed to reflect her beauty in all its undead glory. Her skin, her eyes, seemed sensitive to the sun, and yet with a modicum of caution she could function day and night as she saw fit. Some in the House of Eros even wore crucifixes as daily attire. Mockery was nothing if not a manner of declawing a fear-some foe.
As for holy water?
