Saturday, 10 July 1999, 7:48 PM
Laurel Ridge Farm
Columbia, Maryland
Hesha woke to a crowded and unexpected press of heavy bodies. The copperheads lay coiled over him in excessive, weighty numbers, and the Eldest had curled protectively around his shoulders. As he began to move, he felt the flickering whisper of the patriarch’s tongue on his ear. “Light,” he said softly, and the hidden bulbs glowed.
Hesha locked eyes with the old snake, and hissed back.
The Eldest was wounded. He bared his broken fang and arched his neck, the better to display a replacement descending from the roof of his mouth. He complained. He coiled and recoiled, disturbing the lesser snakes. He was fretful. The nest was not safe. The guardians were halved. Those that could had found sanctuary on the body of their ally; those that could not had left for their winter dens in the fields around Laurel Ridge.
Hesha soothed the old and faithful servant. He ran his hands along the slim backs of the copperhead’s descendants. In time, they found their necks and bellies secure on the floor again, and the stones did nothing unexpected. The Setite’s bare feet slid smoothly among them without causing alarm; he was family, and his scent was theirs.
He satisfied himself that the intrusion had been limited—his treasures and projects were untouched—and made his way, though the center passage, to Vegel’s crypt. He noticed with interest that Elizabeth’s door was wedged shut with the chisel.
“Thompson.”
There was, for the first time in fifteen years, no response.
“Thompson,” he said again, with force.
“Sir.” It was the Asp’s voice. “Sir, Thompson’s a little ill just now.”
“Ill.”
“Yes, sir. Could you—could you come help me with him?”
Thompson’s quarters were comfortable but sparsely furnished. They ran to bookshelves full of old magazines, tapes, tattered true-crime case studies, and a fine set of vinyl albums he never listened to. There were a few old certificates on the walls in thin, plain frames. There was one good rug; he’d bought it in Afghanistan. It was beautiful, and it was valuable, but it had attracted him chiefly because the design—though traditional in every other way—had substituted for random decoration the simplified shapes of machine guns and helicopters.
Hesha Ruhadze’s chief security man sat in an old, battered recliner with a small trash bin in his lap. His face was unhealthily blue, his eyes swollen half shut. His right arm lay in a jury-rigged basin of newspaper, plastic bags, and blood-soaked towels. Similar wadding covered the lower left half of his ribs.
As Hesha entered the room, the Asp had just come from the bathroom with a double armload of fresh towels. He lifted Thompson’s swollen arm and exchanged red cloth for white and beige; the trash bin filled with the dressings, and Mercurio swapped the little can for a mixing bowl. Acidic fumes from the kitchen testified that some receptacle was necessary. The two men looked up at him with weary, resentful, smug expressions. Hesha took the whole scene in in a second, and then wiped the satisfied looks off his men’s faces by turning on his heel and slamming the door behind him.
“Mercurio!” he shouted into the intercom.
“Boss, what the hell are you doing?” The Asp followed Hesha into the bunker, angry, annoyed, and afraid all at once. “Ron’s sick, goddamn it. He’s gonna die, and you just—”
Hesha turned on him. “Wash your hands, you fool!”
Raphael looked from his blood-soaked cuffs and dripping hands to the animal eyes of his master. White with fear, he shrank away.
“Warm four bags and bring them here, quickly.”
Raphael scuttled down the hall, running without turning his back on the bunker and the creature inside it.
Hesha sat down at the console to wait. The smell coming from Thompson’s quarters was overpowering…old blood, new blood, fear, sickness, venom…fresh blood spilling, wasted on the floor, the cloth, the paper…fresh blood…his eyes drifted to the video display of Thompson’s room.
He could not look away, but his hands obeyed his will. The monitor sparked off.
The curse fought him for control of his legs. The man’s door was only five feet away. The man was too ill to fight. The man trusted him, and wouldn’t flinch from the Beast; wouldn’t know the difference between the slave of Apep and the ascetic, thoughtful, rational being that the Setite had fought to construct over the centuries. And the man’s choice was made; he was in pain, he would end his life willingly to start the new one now.
Hesha let the waves of persuasion crash against the bastions of his sanity. From the cold center of the storm, he took exercise and amusement in analyzing the onslaught. The Beast surged forward in raw and willful attack, monstrously strong but poorly armed. Hesha thanked Set that his mind was yet clear, and that the voice of the curse spoke in clumsy shreds of logic.
A plastic bag landed in his lap, body-warm and shockingly heavy.
He picked it up and drained it quickly. The curse cried out for more—in perfect concert, Hesha and the Beast lifted their hand—and the Asp tossed them the second bag. The blood streamed down his cold gullet as fast as the first. Hesha braced himself and began to sip, slowly, the third bag. The Beast clamored still, infuriated by the scent of Thompson’s life, by the wretched flavor of the bagged blood, by the failure of its fight…. Hesha finished his drink, and the unthinking creature within him seemed to loll over, still angry, but caged…not sated, not too drunk to rage for more supper, but understanding on some level that there would be more soon enough.
“Snakebite,” said Hesha.
“Yes, sir.” The Asp had retreated down the corridor. One foot was actually inside the elevator. “This morning.”
“Antitoxin?”
“Yes, sir. Right after the bite.”
“Why is he bleeding?”
“Convulsions, sir. He was puking in the john, and he just lost it. He broke the mirror when he went down, boss. Then he rolled around in it. I’ve been pulling glass out of him for over an hour.”
“Warm three more bags. Knock before you come in,” Hesha directed, moving from his chair, “leave them at the door, and get back out. Understood?”
Raphael nodded. He watched the creature walk into Thompson’s rooms, and he fled back to the freezer chamber, glad to have the heavy, insulated doors between himself and his master.
“Thompson.” Hesha knelt by his servant’s side, clutching the fourth blood bag like a talisman between them.
“Sir.” Ron’s eyes fought crazily for focus. “Sir, were you here just now?”
“Yes.”
“Thank god. Thought I’d imagined it.” He leaned over the bowl and was sick in wracking, dry heaves that shook the old chair with him. Hesha patted him on the back, running his fingers along rents in the robe and open wounds in the skin beneath it. No glass was left there. The Asp seemed to have been thorough enough.
The Setite took Thompson’s head in his hands, looked into his eyes, and said, “Be calm.” The vomiting slowly stopped.
“Is it time, sir?” Ron croaked.
“No,” answered Hesha, understanding his man’s question perfectly. “Tonight you merely have an unscheduled lesson in the powers of Set’s blood.” Thompson stared dully at him from swollen eyes. “Let me check your arms, first.” Minutes passed with forceps and scalpel. A few shards of mirror were added to the bowl the Asp had started, and from the snakebites came forth a broken fang or two. The bowl and the tools went into the kitchen sink, and Hesha returned from the drainboard with a knife and a large coffee mug in his hands.
“Drink this.”
“I haven’t been able to keep anything down, sir….”
“Drink this.”
Thompson took a sip. His eyes flickered to the dark contents in apprehension, and Hesha could see the questions starting.
“Drink it all, Thompson.”
When the mug was empty, Hesha filled it again from his wrist. Thompson took it
back obediently, and they drank together…mortal from the cup, Setite from the bag. The Asp delivered the rest of the blood as ordered; it flowed into the cold body and trickled from it to fill the mug again.
“Enough.” Hesha pulled up a chair opposite the wounded man. “Now burn that. Use it. Don’t tell me that you don’t know what I mean—keep listening. There is fire in your stomach…like fear…” said the Setite, softly. “Like anger…like adrenaline…like whisky…” his voice went on, hypnotically. “You’ve done a little drinking in your time, Detective Sergeant Thompson…take the fire, take the whisky, and force it out of your gut. Put it in your arm. The venom you were hit with today…that was fire in the veins, killing you. This is fire in the arteries, destroying the venom. Set your arm on fire…burn the venom away…torch out the glass and the cuts and the bruises.
“Look at your arm, Thompson.”
Ronald Thompson moved his head painfully and saw his swollen, discolored limb changing. The streaks of white and red faded; the blue-purple that had begun to fester sweetly turned green-gold, then faint brown, then his own skin-tan. The sickly colors shrank from his fingers, his wrist….
“Concentrate. Don’t let it stop.”
“What am I doing?!”
“Healing yourself. Set’s blood, even diluted, can heal the living. So, I understand, can Caine’s….” Hesha looked into Thompson’s eyes, lifted the shredded robe from his shoulders, and examined the knotted terrain of his back. “Move it away from your arm. Fix your feet. Then spread the fire to the back. You’re still bleeding there.” The gashes mended themselves. “Good. You have control over it. Now stand up and be sure every wound is closed.”
Thompson stood and tried to obey. He shook his head. “The fire’s out, sir.”
“Excellent. It was necessary to burn it all. There are side effects. Think about how you felt before and after you drank my blood. With one night’s drink, you probably felt gratitude, friendship, nostalgia, tenderness, unreasoning trust….”
Thompson’s expression held none of those fine feelings now. Hesha’s list was far too accurate.
“Two nights, and you should come almost to love me.”
Thompson’s still-puffy face took on fear.
“Three nights’ drinks form a kind of slavery between the drinker and the one whose blood is taken. It is called the Blood Bond, or the Vinculum, or the Coeur Vrai, or the Oath, or the Coils of Apep, or a hundred other names…and it lasts forever.”
As the implications sank in, Hesha’s bodyguard turned chalk white. “Forever?”
Hesha stared at the floor. With a long, thin hand, he dismissed forever. “Until you die, or until you die again. Long enough. There are said to be seven ways to break it; five are legendary, three are impossible, four are impractical…all of them are difficult, and only one is quick.”
Thompson’s face lost none of its horror. “So you could…you could use this on any one of us….”
Hesha’s eyebrow twitched. “But I do not, obviously.” He paused. “Or you wouldn’t be in a position to ask the question, Thompson.” Without haste, he collected the empty bags, the bloodied knife, the red-stained mug, and took them to the kitchen. He returned with a glass of juice and a new bowl. Setting them in Thompson’s hands, he commented, “It is far, far better to earn the loyalty of the people you are forced to trust. I find that slaves make unreliable servants. Many of my enemies keep their retainers in bondage—and that, Thompson, is a very useful thing.” He sat down again, and his manner changed.
“Lesson over,” he said. “Report.”
Elizabeth sat atop a tall, thin stool in the studio. She leant on her left elbow, holding a loose bundle of cotton swabs. Her right hand took one up, dipped it into a jar, and rolled it carefully over the fly-specked, smoke-stained surface of the painting. The swab, now a dirty yellow, she flicked into a waste tray by her side. Left hand fed right, the process was repeated, the clean path along the painting’s edge growing steadily.
Hesha walked into the room. Where there were shadows, he wrapped himself inside them; where there was light, he merely slipped unnoticed within it. The woman heard nothing. There were new, weary lines around her eyes; the delicate skin was stained the color of old bruises; the lids were red-rimmed. He smelt salt on her cheeks.
Hesha walked back to the door and let the light strike him again.
“Elizabeth.”
She looked up in surprise. “Hi.” The swabs dropped to the tabletop. “I thought you’d all gone into town until tomorrow. Thompson left a note….”
“It was a lie.”
Elizabeth’s chin tilted up, her eyes narrowed defensively, and she turned on the stool to face him. She said nothing, but searched his face. It might as well have been carved from marble.
“Come here, please. I would like to talk to you.” Hesha stepped back, leaving the way clear for her to go by. After a moment’s hesitation, she rose and followed him. “In my study, if you don’t mind.” The Setite led her to a door she’d never been through. He held it open for her. Hesha paused at the precise distance into the study that would force the wall seat upon his guest, and she took it.
“Tell me about your dream last night,” he began.
Elizabeth flushed. “Excuse me?”
“You walked and spoke in your sleep.”
Her eyes shuttered against him. “Sleepwalkers don’t necessarily remember their dreams, Hesha.”
“But you do, Elizabeth, or you would have said: ‘I don’t remember.’” He almost smiled. “Yours is a very diplomatic dishonesty.”
She clenched her jaw and said nothing. Hesha read the lines of her face—anger, caution, resentment, logic. Whatever harm the truth might do her, he had at least put her on her guard.
He went on, softly. “I expect that there are nightmares for you. I want to help.” The stern note returned. “In fact, it is absolutely necessary that I intervene.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“I intend to devote the remaining hours before sunrise ensuring that you do.” Hesha paused. “Under ordinary circumstances I would never have brought you here. I picked you up in New York as a diversion—” she winced— “from more pressing matters. You were…you are…unique. Contrary. Fascinating. I suspected you had an uncommon gift for observation. I showed you a statue that puzzled me. You put your finger on the crux of the matter in one night. You removed the eye. I was impressed, and I decided that I would visit you often…in New York,” he finished heavily.
“Within a day, you had destroyed my plans. There were…” He sought, visibly, for words, and spoke slowly: “…worse things following Kettridge, and I could not, in good conscience, leave you to be found by them. So I brought you here intending to protect you and keep the truth of the danger from troubling you. In time, I would have returned you safely to New York. Or—” his voice lowered. “Or in time, I hoped we might have had a different, less hurried, less disturbing version of this conversation.”
“We aren’t having a conversation,” snapped Elizabeth. “This is a monologue, Hesha.”
She takes the truth by the heart, he sighed to himself. His soft tones and feigned embarrassment dropped away. Curtly, he spelled out the essence of the problem. “In order to keep the reality of the situation from you, the Asp, Thompson, and I have constructed an elaborate charade. The events of this morning prove to me that you, whether you know it consciously or not, have seen through the acting and the stage set. Our little masquerade has put each of us in still greater danger.” With the last word, his voice fell, and what came next from Hesha’s throat was like thunder.
“Now tell me your dream, Elizabeth, before your gift of perception gets one of us killed.”
Elizabeth stared back at him through wide, hard-rimmed eyes. Her face was pale, her mouth shut and voiceless. Her throat was tight with tears and anger, her gut knotted in fear. He’s insane. Her mind churned frantically, but nothing helpful rose to the surface. Whatever I’m supposed to
have seen, God, why can’t I see it now? He doesn’t look crazy, he looks…every sentence makes less sense, not more…but he obviously thinks he’s explaining something…paralogia…paranoia…but his face… She turned her eyes away. Whether he was sane or mad, the sight of his face hurt her. His eyes, so near black, guarded by strong brows and cunning smiles…once or twice there had been a gentler look in them, something encouraging and open…. Elizabeth watched his hands instead. The bones were long and beautiful, like a sculpture some god had hidden under flesh…the color of his skin was so rich and deep and mellow a brown…there isn’t a word for it. Like horse chestnuts and old saddles and…he’s mad, I think.
Hesha studied the woman’s reaction clinically. Despite himself, he was impressed that she could sit silent after the treatment he’d given her—either she had no will at all, which he knew was not true—or she was stronger than he’d guessed. Set below, he thought irritably. What am I doing guessing?
He held out his hands. “Come with me,” he said.
Elizabeth let him pull her up from the chair, thinking how cold his fingertips were, how impossible he was.
Hesha opened the door to the main hall and drew her behind him. He strode to a full and solid-looking bookcase and slid it aside. The passage beyond was dark and narrow, but the walls were ordinary enough. They turned a corner into lighter, wider space, and a sturdy metal door blocked the way.
“Unlock.”
He had kept tight hold of her right hand. As the door swung open, he let go.
Elizabeth walked ahead of him into a long, low room crowded with steel, glass and black plastic. The Asp was there, and the expression on his face was insufferable. Liz took it as astonishment mixed with malice; Hesha knew more of Raphael’s moods. He knew the killer was savoring the wreck of the illusion, and why. Hesha smiled, and decided that the Asp was having enough fun. Pride goeth before a fall, he thought wickedly, and waited.
Clan Novel Setite: Book 4 of The Clan Novel Saga Page 12
