Elizabeth misdialed, cleared, and started over. “He might be able to help you—” she pleaded. “You told me, he healed you after the snake bites—”
“Maybe he’ll heal me. Maybe he’ll kill me.” Thompson looked up at her, trying to explain. “He wants to replace Vegel.” His glance caught Kettridge’s, and the younger man looked away. “I thought I wanted that. Since then…” he gasped, and a little more blood spilled from the edge of the wound, “I know that I don’t. But I don’t think…that Hesha…will just let anyone go….”
His hand closed over Elizabeth’s. She let the phone fall into her lap.
“Let me tell you something,” he said gently. “You think he cares about you? You haven’t seen him lie enough. I thought there was something to him. Then I saw how he manipulated you. I don’t believe much of him anymore…I don’t want anymore to be like him ….” His voice trailed off like a sleepy child’s, and his eyes shut for a moment.
Then, wide-eyed and suddenly stronger, he asked, “You love him?” Elizabeth’s eyes shifted uneasily. “You don’t really love him. His blood—their blood—does things to people. One sip, you care about them. Two, you love them. Three drinks makes a slave out of you. That’s how he put it, little sister.”
“I haven’t—”
“You have. Twice.” Ron’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “The hangover cure, that night in New York.” She opened her mouth to protest, but the dying man overran her. “Then, in Calcutta, I caught him feeding it to you while you were in that trance, telling stories…two drinks, Liz.
I’ve lied to you, too, of course. You start to do that, around him…for the best of reasons. But I’m just a liar, Liz. The Asp is a cat burglar and an assassin. And Hesha’s a vampire, no matter what fancy words he puts over it or whose definition you use. He’s the thing from the late show. So don’t call him. Give me a quiet grave, first.” Thompson rolled a little, toward Jordan Kettridge, and his lined, fading face fairly begged. “Get her away from him,” he whispered. “Get the hell out of here. Leave the Eye…just don’t risk yourself or her…get Liz away….” His hand pulled Elizabeth down to him, and she wrapped her arms around him tightly. “Ron…please… we’ll get an ambulance….”
“They’re gonna airlift me out of a cave?” he tried to joke. He coughed again, and this time blood spilled freely from his mouth. “Don’t worry, little sister. I’m getting away. Watch me run. Watch me—”
Ronald Thompson ran out of his life smiling, with his eyes fixed on Elizabeth’s face.
Kettridge covered the old cop’s face, and Elizabeth hung her head, crying bitterly.
Jordan walked away and left her alone for a long time.
“Miss Dimitros…” Kettridge approached the kneeling woman cautiously.
“Yes,” she answered, dully.
“I am sorry. Ron and I…were friends, a long time ago. If he had wanted Hesha—”
Elizabeth turned her head to look at him. “That’s easy to say now.”
“I mean it.” His gray-green eyes locked on hers, and she discovered sincerity there.
“What now?”
“If you will let me, I’ll try again for Ruhadze.”
“To kill him?”
“Yes.” Jordan nodded, adding, “and to destroy the Eye for good. There’s a way out uphill from here. If I can stake the vampire, I’ll be leaving by it. If I can’t, I’m going to die here,” he said calmly. “You can go now, if I can trust you not to warn him.”
Liz took a deep breath and let go of Thompson’s cooling hand. “I want to help you.”
“Are you sure?” Elizabeth nodded vigorously, and stood up. She took a gun off Thompson’s hip, and Kettridge stepped back, despite himself. “Then call him. Tell him something…convincing.”
Liz stared at her phone. Hesha’s number—she dialed it in, and waited.
“Yes,” answered the rich, deep voice she remembered. Elizabeth looked down at Thompson. No names, she thought. I could use his name and warn him— “Hello.” Somewhere in the labyrinth, Hesha paused. For the woman to call was…unusual. “Report,” he said guardedly.
“We found a campsite. My partner is looking it over; we think you should take a look. Without the supply you’re carrying,” she said, thinking of the sack of wet Ganges mud, “he’s afraid to go into the bags.”
“Why are you making the contact?”
“The phone wouldn’t work in the area. There may be too much rock between you and it—or the object may be there and interfering. He sent me back to the last junction to try.” She gave detailed directions and then cut the call off. Kettridge laid a hand on her shoulder, led her around a corner, and set her down by a backpack and rolled-up sleeping bag. A campsite, she thought in surprise. True enough. Then the professor dragged Thompson’s body out of sight of the chimney, cocked and loaded a crossbow, and settled in for a wait.
Sounds from the chimney:
Nothing, for almost an hour.
A faint, scraping footfall.
Kettridge turned, aimed, and fired. Spang. Thwack. Thud. He loaded another stake into the bow, then flashed Thompson’s bright, unfiltered light at the prone figure by the stair edge. The body lay still. Elizabeth joined him at the corner, checking the color of Hesha’s skin. It was fainter and grayer than the tone he affected while waking…it was, in fact, the shade she remembered from the dream of his death, and the night in Calcutta when he let his illusion go. The tattoo stood out in the flash.
Liz crept forward and tried to lift the body. It came up all in one piece, rigid and stiff as a board. Hesha’s eyes complained to her, and she looked quickly away.
Jordan Kettridge lowered the crossbow. He brought Hesha into the center of the chamber he’d used as a camp, and from a pack at his waist, he pulled out a clear, zip-lock bag. It bulged with pale goo and an Eye the size of a baseball. He laid it down three feet from Hesha’s corpse.
“We’re leaving.” He shoved Liz back down the passage, threw his backpack on, and started running up a side path. He took a gray metal box with three lights and four buttons from the same pack that had held the artifact, armed it with the first button, pressed a second, and glanced back to see fire and rockfall consume the room behind them. He turned up another corridor, and started running, nudging the girl along whenever she faltered. He pressed one and three, and the passage they had just left collapsed. At the end of the tunnel, a tiny hole led out into moonlight. Liz scrambled through it, Kettridge shoved his pack ahead of him, and fell out headfirst himself.
The slope under them was grassy and steep, and they ran down to the valley floor in minutes. Breathing heavily, falling down under the weight of his bag, Jordan triggered the last charge, and half the hill seemed to shake and fall in on itself.
Later, in a rented car on its way to Manhattan, Jordan kept a close watch on his passenger. She wept some of the time, and she talked about Thompson, trying to arrange for herself the things she thought she knew about the man. She ranted at other moments, and though a fair amount of the anger came at Kettridge himself, she was most bitter and furious at Hesha. She hates him, thought the hunter. She’s definitely not still under his control. With a great deal of relief, Jordan relaxed behind the wheel. Hesha Ruhadze had died for the last time beside his victim, Ron Thompson. Hesha Ruhadze would never haunt antique-shop assistants or obscure Berkeley anthropology professors again.
Friday, 30 July 1999, 2:43 PM
A studio apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn
New York City, New York
Home again, thought Elizabeth. She stopped for a moment on the threshold—she had never thought to see her rooms again. They were, for that instant, the most beautiful place on Earth. Then she looked down at herself, shuddered, and ran for the bedroom.
Liz stripped off her blood-stiffened clothes, threw them into the trash, and plunged under the full force of the shower. First it was too cold, then scalding hot—she adjusted the knobs, but she didn’t care—Thompson’s blood had s
oaked through her jeans. It was in her hair. It was under her fingernails. She scrubbed away the gore, then washed again, trying to forget that Hesha had ever touched her, anywhere. After forty minutes, she got out, pruny from the water and rubbed raw by the washcloth. She went to her wardrobe, realized that most of it was in Hesha’s house…with her dissertation notes…and her favorite dress…and her grandmother’s silver jewelry…. Liz pulled on a white dress shirt that she’d bought to give to her sister-in-law and a pair of khakis that had somehow escaped being packed off to Baltimore.
She rambled to the kitchen and started her answering machine. It told her there were forty-seven messages, and she hit PLAY as she opened the refrigerator. An old boyfriend called to see if she still existed, and the fridge was empty. There was a note inside from Amy explaining that she’d had it cleaned out. A series of clicks represented wrong numbers and telemarketers. Liz pulled a cardboard dinner from the freezer and slammed it into the microwave. More clicks. Her brother had called. The museum wanted to know if she could fill in while a permanent staffer took a sabbatical. Liz made juice from a frozen tube of concentrate, poured herself a glass. She snagged her dinner and sat down at the coffee table to sort through her mail. Later, satisfied, somehow, by the ordinariness of the junk, the coupons, the credit-card offers, the sales notices—fur coats and dishwashers had so little to do with dead men in the mountains—she drifted over to her workshop.
Antonio, the delivery foreman at Rutherford House, had left a stack of small pieces and a few notes. Liz looked through them and put the pieces away for later. She saw the eye molds still sitting on her workbench; she threw them out hastily.
Sleipnir caught her eye, and she ran a hand happily over her desk. She sat down on the polished top and gazed out the huge, gorgeous windows. Her thoughts turned to Amy…better to call her tomorrow, when all the things that had happened had settled a little more. She knew, thinking about it, that it would be hard to talk to someone outside—and now Amy was outside—about everything. Kettridge had offered his phone number; had let her talk, she had needed badly to talk, and Jordan had even listened. After the shock, he understood. He was still intense and a little awkward, but very nice, very kind. Paranoid, too, she realized—trying to give her tips on sunlight and fire and how to get the right weapons if she ever needed them. He was running scared and didn’t know how to stop. Elizabeth supposed that a thing like Hesha might do that to a person.
New York settled down under a golden afternoon. People left their buildings and walked to buses; unlocked and un-Clubbed their cars. The locals stepped down to the corner grocers and back, and drifters simply did. Elizabeth watched them all, and a sinister feeling crept up her back. On impulse, she reached for a spray can from the shelves, found a lighter by the candles in the library, and put them together experimentally. A very satisfactory jet of flame rewarded her. She sat for a long time on Sleipnir’s broad back, cradling the can to her chest and holding the lighter white-knuckle-tight in her left hand.
The sun began to fade. The warehouse shadow grew longer and longer, and streetlights glimmered on one by one. Suddenly Elizabeth felt called to action. She gathered up all her spray cans, matches, lighters, lamp oil, and candles and set them out strategically. She doublechecked the bolts on the (thank god!) inch-thick steel door to her apartment, locked all the windows down tight, and piled a heap of light, noisy junk in front of the swinging pane that led onto the fire escape. She ran down the curtains and retreated to the sofa, keeping her improvised flame-throwers close at hand. At the slightest noise her hand reached for them; she started whenever unexplained silence fell on her. The vampire had taught her to sleep by day—free at last to fix that, exhausted, and bone-weary, Elizabeth realized that she would not shut her eyes until they closed of themselves.
Elizabeth felt her left shoulder tighten up. She flinched and looked back, sure that something had come up behind her. There was nothing—she looked to her right—and suddenly, Hesha’s face appeared in front of her own. His eyes were yellow, with inhuman, slit pupils. Her heart jumped as she stared at the apparition. She thought of the fire, but her body had turned to lead and refused to obey her. She could not even look away.
Hesha said nothing.
Liz sat frozen like a statue, in a paralysis so complete her lungs gave her only short, quick breaths—as she panicked, the rhythm quickened, her head grew light. Terror dug deep claws into her, and the vampire’s golden eyes bored through her brain. She was dizzy and felt like falling, but her body refused even to collapse.
The monster spoke at last. “Good evening, Elizabeth.” He reached out and took the can and lighter from her. “Clever, as always. And you paid attention during our time together. That you failed is not your fault; you cannot fight what you cannot see.” He placed his hands on her chest and pushed her unresisting body back on the couch. “Be comfortable.”
He knocked the woman’s petty arsenal off the coffee table with one sweeping arm. The cans clanged horribly on the floorboards, and the raucous noise echoed down from the rafters. Hesha seated himself on the table, and kept his unblinking eyes on his prisoner.
“It has become necessary for me to kill you. I doubt that you would appreciate many of the reasons for this. It is not in my nature to explain, and it would not be within your ability to comprehend me should I speak the whole truth to you.” He paused. “While you await your death, however, you may desire something to take your mind off your situation, and I invite you to consider this: If you had not allowed Thompson to die—yes, I know about that—I would not be here to kill you now.
“You betrayed me. I understand that, and I fault myself—my handling of you has been flawed from the beginning. I sinned. I almost fell into compassion. I allowed myself and my meditations to be distracted by the Eye. I underestimated a mortal—the same mortal—more than once. I saw clear signs and misunderstood them.
“You killed Thompson, Elizabeth,” he murmured, puzzled, “and I had not seen even the shadow of that in you. I see most things….” The golden eyes came closer, until Elizabeth felt she were drowning in them. “Have you anything to say?” His irises deepened slowly to black. “If you sit still, you may whisper.”
Elizabeth tried to leap up and scream at the top of her lungs. Hesha seemed disappointed. He raised an eyebrow.
“How did you know about Ron?” She could hardly hear her voice herself.
“I found Kettridge’s cave at the same time you did. He believed there were only two entrances. He neglected to consider holes a human body could not squeeze through. I listened to it all.”
“Why did you let him die?”
“Why did you?” he asked in a tone of genuine curiosity.
She swallowed hard. “How did you escape?”
“You staked me. I am not a vampire; I am a Child of Set. I have no heart for Kettridge to spear me by, and I am difficult to destroy. No more questions. No more explanations. Do you have anything to say?”
Elizabeth thought for a moment. “Kill me quickly.”
“No.” Hesha’s gaze turned gold again.
“You die tonight for Thompson’s sake,” intoned the Setite. “You die tonight that I may redeem myself in my Lord’s grace. You die tonight because alive you are a temptation to me.” He began to chant in a language Elizabeth did not know. Then: “You are beyond my control. You are a burden on my will.” The strange language flowed through her ears again. His voice rose, repeated one phrase half a dozen times, and fell to silence.
Hesha’s fingers traced the line of her jaw. His hand tilted her head back, and his arms snaked around her. Elizabeth watched terrible, sharp fangs like a viper’s drop down from behind his canines. She closed her eyes and braced herself for pain, for a torn throat and a severed windpipe; she prayed for unconsciousness to come soon, even if the monster were determined that death should await some plan of his own.
She felt an unexpected softness, a tender kiss, on her mouth, and the shock was worse than a wound
. Hesha, pretending to want her, in a room in Calcutta…his lips slid along her cheek, kissed her again beneath the ear, and finally bit into the vein.
Elizabeth screamed for what seemed like an eternity, but was less than a second; the scream never passed her lips. Her breath caught. A gasp escaped her. The worst of the attack wasn’t pain, but heart-wrenching, bittersweet ecstasy. She clutched at him desperately, drawing him closer, and forgot everything…she pressed herself against him…her heart ached—it couldn’t beat fast enough…. Her cheek rubbed against his, and she felt his skin grow warm with what he stole from her. She flushed for a moment, and felt it fade as more blood left her. Elizabeth lost the strength to hold him, and sagged into the strong cocoon of his arms. Time slowed—or Hesha sipped more delicately—and she seemed to float in a luxurious sea. Bells rang in her ears, and lights danced before her eyes. In a moment, the chimes and colors fell behind her, and there was nothing left but the sea—she couldn’t feel the pressure of his hands or the tingling of her own fingertips—there was the sea of ecstasy, darkness, and the faintest memory of a body…somewhere…with a tiny, stinging pain in the side of its throat. She held onto that a minute longer, dizzy and dwindling, thinking not of her life ending, but of the touch of him going away forever…she could remember his arms….
Then there was nothing—just enough of it, for just long enough, for her to know always what nothing was like—
—and a single drop of fire landed in her mouth.
She had a mouth, she had a body. It was a mass of sharp pain and chill, stiff, dull agony. She kicked and clawed at something she couldn’t see—it tore back at her, trying to destroy what little there was of her—and the fire came back to her mouth. Wine, pure water, strawberries, acid, thickened passion, mother’s milk, bitter gall, vinegar, burning hatred…singing guilt…a power…other men’s memories…deliciously and unspeakably wrong to drink, but impossible not to swallow. The stuff filled her heart and coursed through her veins, and the sharp pains went away. It went on flowing, and the agony subsided.
Clan Novel Setite: Book 4 of The Clan Novel Saga Page 25
