A Whisper of Blood

by Ellen Datlow

  —How could you be here?

  They brought me back and locked me in this place.

  —But why? Didn’t they kill you?

  Yes, but to them I was a heretic.

  —I still don’t understand.

  The laughter came again, rippling through Caroline’s mind in a very unpleasant sensation.

  They believed that heretics return to this world, possessing terrible powers. The power to draw the lifeblood of faith out of other souls. To control the feeble human mind. That is why they burned heretics, and tore the bodies to pieces.

  But that was another time, centuries ago, and now not even the Church believes in such things. Beliefs change, but do they ever matter?

  The Pope had to see me, to see for himself that I really was dead, and so they brought me back from Persia.

  —And put you down here and forgot about you?

  Oh, they played with me awhile, using their knives and hot irons. Dry laughter, like whistling sand. But then the old Pope dies, and yes, I was forgotten. —When did you last…

  See someone? A charming young novice in the thirteenth century. I haven’t been able to move from this spot in about perhaps three hundred years now. Easy to find souls, but not to bring them all the way into this place.

  The old man was crazy, Caroline had no doubt. But whatever the truth about him might be, he obviously needed care, and maybe medical attention. He certainly did not belong down in a clammy dungeon. It was a miracle he wasn’t already dead. He looked so frail and helpless, and there was such sadness in his eyes.

  —I’ll get help.

  Don’t leave me, child.

  —What should I do?

  The door. Come to me.

  Caroline approached the cell door. The hinges looked as if they wouldn’t budge. She put her hands around one of the bars in the center of the door, and shook it. The hinges held, but there was some give inside the lock. Caroline shook the door again and the corroded latch crumbled steadily beneath the pressure. Rusty flakes showered down to the floor. The hinges shrieked painfully as Caroline forced the door open.

  The old man looked up hopefully as she slipped into the cell and went to him. She wasn’t sure what to do next. He looked too weak and fragile to move.

  Hold me.

  Caroline sat down on the floor beside him, took him by the shoulders, and carefully lifted him up. His head lolled against her shoulder, then slid a little, resting over her heart, and he smiled gratefully. Caroline had no desire to move.

  Touch me with your skin.

  Caroline stroked his cheek lightly—it felt cool and dry, like one of the old manuscripts she had examined. Regardless of who he was or why he was there, the old man responded to her hand on his cheek. His eyes brightened and his features became more animated. He was certainly old, but so small and shrunken, like some lonely, withered child. I need to be closer.

  Caroline didn’t understand. Her mind felt tired, lazy, and remarkably tranquil. She didn’t want to move at all. She hugged the old man closer to her.

  To your warmth.

  Her mind couldn’t follow a complete thought anymore. Nothing mattered but the moment, and her part in it. Caroline unbuttoned her blouse and the old man quickly pressed his face to her skin.

  More.

  Her bra was in the way. Caroline pulled it down, uncovering her breasts. The old man rubbed his face against them, burrowed between them, and then she felt his tongue, like fine sandpaper, seeking her nipple. Caroline was paralyzed with delirium, dazed with a sense of giving. It felt as if her body were a vessel full of precious liquid, a kind of inner sea of living warmth that was now flowing through her skin into him. But there was nothing to replace it, and Caroline’s heart quickened with a sudden surge of useless alarm.

  —Holy man …

  Once.

  —You brought me here? In a way, yes.

  —You spoke to me in dreams …

  In dreams you spoke with yourself, and I am what you found. —You took my faith … What we let go was never there. —Help me …

  Become what you become, as I did. —They were right… Well, yes.

  —You became … What they made me. —God help me … And who is that, child?

  Caroline reached up to touch her own cheek and was amazed to find that it already felt as cool and dry as onionskin. Too weak to move, Caroline rested her hand on the man’s bony shoulder. She was vaguely aware that she ought to push him away. There was no muscle strength left in her arm. Then Caroline was unable even to remain sitting up, and she fell back flat on the floor. She felt so light there was no pain when her head hit the stone. The old man moved lower and rested his face in the warm softness of her belly. He left no mark on her, for the touch of her skin was enough. An image flickered across her mind—she was buried beneath a million books, and it was not an unpleasant experience. Then the books began to fall, tons of them raining silently down through the darkness, and Caroline fell with them, a fading ribbon of liquid heat that spun and swirled as she flew gloriously out of herself.

  She wakes in darkness. Disoriented for a moment, she shoves the dead bones off her bare skin. Now she knows where she is and what comes next. She stands, buttons her blouse, and leaves. She knows the way. So much time has gone by. It’s late, and she has a million things to do.

  Dona Rintelman got me wondering about what might have been lost or forgotten in the recesses of the Vatican over the course of centuries. This story is for Dona, but it is emphatically not about her.

  Any similarity between the hold that the world’s religions exert on some of their believers, and the legendary power that vampires have over certain hapless human beings, is of course entirely in the mind of the observer. Things always look different from the inside.

  Thomas Tessier

  DO I DARE TO EAT A PEACH?

  Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Tessier’s story was about the human embodiment of a religious heresy as vampire. In Yarbro’s classic, the State, represented by a few men, metaphorically takes on the characteristics of vampirism when it gives these men the power to brainwash Weybridge and drain him of his personality, his hope, and his will.

  Weybridge had been burgled: someone—some thing—had broken in and ransacked his memories, leaving all that was familiar in chaos. It was almost impossible for him to restore order, and so he was not entirely sure how much had been lost.

  Malpass offered him sympathy. “Look, David, we know you went through a lot. We know that you’d like the chance to put it all behind you. We want you to have that, but there are a few more things we have to get cleared up. You understand how it is.”

  “Yes,” Weybridge said vaguely, hoping that, by agreeing, he might learn more. “You have your … your …”

  “Responsibilities,” Malpass finished for him. “Truth to tell, there are times I wish I didn’t have them.” He patted David on the shoulder. “You’re being great about all this. I’ll make sure it’s in the report.”

  Weybridge wanted to ask what report it was, and for whom, but he could not bring himself to say the words. He simply nodded, as he had done so many times before. He opened his mouth, once, twice, then made a wave with one hand.

  “We know how it is, old man,” Malpass said as he scrutinized Weybridge. “They worked you over, David. We know that. We don’t blame you for what you did after that.”

  Weybridge nodded a few more times, his mind on other things. He eventually stared up at the ceiling. He wanted to tell Malpass and the others that he would rather be left alone, simply turned out and ignored, but that wasn’t possible. He had hinted at it once, when they had first started talking to him, and the reaction had been incredulity. So Weybridge resigned himself to the long, unproductive wait.

  In the evening, when Malpass was gone, Stone took his place. Stone was younger than Malpass, and lacked that air of sympathy the older man appeared to possess. He would stand by the door, his arms folded, his hair perfectly in place, his jaw shaved to
shininess, and he would favor Weybridge with a contemptuous stare. Usually he had a few taunting remarks to make before relapsing into his cold, staring silence. Tonight was no different. “They should have left you where they found you. A man like you—you don’t deserve to be saved.”

  Weybridge sighed. It was useless, he knew from experience, to try to tell Stone that he had no memory of the time he was … wherever it was he had been. “Why?” he asked wearily, hoping that some word, some revelation, no matter how disgusting, would give him a sense of what he had done.

  “You know why. Treating the dead that way. I saw the photos. Men like you aren’t worth the trouble to bring back. They should leave you to rot, after what you did.” He shook his head. “We’re wasting our time with you. Men like you—”

  “I know. We should be left alone.” He stared up at the glare of the ceiling light. “I agree.”

  Stone made a barking sound that should have been a laugh but wasn’t. “Oh, no. Don’t go pious on me now, Weybridge. You’re in for a few more questions before they throw you back in the pond. One of these days you’re going to get tired of the lies, and you’ll tell us what you were doing, and who made you do it.”

  Weybridge shook his head slowly. His thin, hospital-issue pajamas made him chilly at night, and he found himself shivering. That reminded him of something from the past, a time when he had been cold, trembling, for days on end. But where it had happened and why eluded him. He leaned back on the pillows and tried to make his mind a blank, but still the fragments, disjointed and terrifying, were with him. He huddled under the covers, burrowing his head into the stacked pillows as if seeking for refuge. He wanted to ask Stone to turn the lights down, but he knew the young man would refuse. There was something about nightmares, and screams, but whether they were his own or someone else’s, he was not sure.

  “You had any rest since you got here, Weybridge?” Stone taunted him. “I’m surprised that you even bother to try. You have no right to sleep.”

  “Maybe,” Weybridge muttered, dragging the sheet around his shoulders. “Maybe you’re wrong, though.”

  “Fat chance,” Stone scoffed, and made a point of looking away from him. “Fat fucking chance.”

  Weybridge lay back on his bed, his eyes half focused on the acoustical tile of the ceiling. If he squinted, he thought he could discern a pattern other than the simple regularity of perforations. There might be a message in the ceiling. There might be a clue.

  Stone stayed on duty, silent for most of his shift, but favoring Weybridge with an occasional sneer. He smoked his long, thin dark cigarettes and dropped the ashes onto the floor. The only time he changed his attitude was when the nurse came in to give Weybridge yet another injection. Then he winked lasciviously and tried to pat her ass as she left the room.

  “You shouldn’t bother her,” Weybridge said, his tongue unwieldy as wet flannel. “She … she doesn’t want—”

  “She doesn’t want to have to deal with someone like you,” Stone informed him.

  Weybridge sighed. “I hope …” He stopped, knowing that he had left hope behind, back in the same place his memories were.

  Malpass was back soon after Stone left, and he radiated his usual air of sympathy. “We’ve been going over your early reports, David, and so far, there’s nothing … irregular about them. Whatever happened must have occurred in the last sixteen months. That’s something, isn’t it.”

  “Sure,” Weybridge said, waiting for the orderly to bring him his breakfast.

  “So we’ve narrowed down the time. That means we can concentrate on your work in that sixteen-month period, and perhaps get a lead on when you were …” He made a gesture of regret and reached out to pat Weybridge on the shoulder.

  “When I was turned,” Weybridge said harshly. “That’s what you’re looking for. You want to know how much damage I did before you got me back, don’t you?”

  “Of course that’s a factor,” Malpass allowed. “But there are other operatives who might be subjected to the same things that have happened to you. We do know that they are not all pharmacological. There were other aspects involved.” He cleared his throat and looked toward the Venetian blind that covered the window. It was almost closed, so that very little light from outside penetrated the room.

  “That’s interesting, I guess,” Weybridge said, unable to think of anything else to say.

  “It is,” Malpass insisted with his unflagging good humor. “You took quite a risk in letting us bring you back. We’re pretty sure the other side didn’t want you to be … recovered.”

  “Good for me.” Weybridge laced his hands behind his head. “And when you find out—if you find out—what then? What becomes of me once you dredge up the truth? Or doesn’t that matter?”

  “Of course it matters,” Malpass said, his eyes flicking uneasily toward a spot on the wall. “We look after our own, David.”

  “But I’m not really your own anymore, am I?” He did not bother to look at Malpass, so that the other man would not have to work so hard to lie.

  “Deep down, we know you are,” Malpass hedged. “You’re proving it right now, by your cooperation.”

  “Cooperation?” Weybridge burst out. “Is that what you think this is? I was dragged back here, tranked out of my mind, and hustled from place to place in sealed vans like something smuggled through customs. No one asked me if I wanted to be here, or if I wanted you to unravel whatever is left of my mind. Cut the crap, Malpass. You want to get the last of the marrow before you throw the bones out.” It was the most Weybridge had said at one time since his return, and it startled Malpass.

  “David, I can understand why you’re upset, especially considering all you’ve gone through. But believe me, I’m deeply interested in your welfare. I certainly wouldn’t countenance any more abuse where you’re concerned.” He smiled, showing his very perfect, very expensive teeth. “Anyone who’s been through what you’ve been through—”

  “You don’t know what it was. Neither do I,” Weybridge reminded him.

  “—would have every reason to be bitter. I don’t blame you for that,” Malpass went on as if nothing had been said. “You know that you have been—”

  “No, I don’t know!” Weybridge turned on him, half rising in his bed. “I haven’t any idea! That’s the problem. I have scraps here and there, but nothing certain, and nothing that’s entirely real. You call me David, and that might be my first name, but I don’t remember it, and it doesn’t sound familiar. For all I know, I’m not home at all, or this might not be my home. For all I know, I never got away from where I was and this is just another part of the … the experiment.”

  Malpass did not answer at once. He paced the length of the room, then turned and came back toward the head of the bed. “I didn’t know you were so troubled,” he said finally, his eyes lowered as if in church. “I’ll tell your doctors that you need extra care today.”

  “You mean more drugs,” Weybridge sighed. “It might work. Who knows?”

  “Listen, David,” Malpass said with great sincerity, “we’re relying on you in this. We can’t get you straight again without your help, and that isn’t always easy for you to give, I know.”

  Weybridge closed his eyes. He had a brief impression of a man in a uniform that he did not recognize, saying something in precisely that same tone of commiseration and concern that Malpass was using now. For some reason, the sound of it made him want to vomit, and his appetite disappeared.

  “Is something wrong, David?"Malpass asked, his voice sounding as if he were a very long way off. “David?”

  “It’s nothing,” he muttered, trying to get the older man to go away. “I… didn’t sleep well.”

  “The lights?” Malpass guessed, then went on. “We’ve told you why they’re necessary for the time being. Once your memory starts coming back, then you can have the lights off at night. It will be safe then.”

  “Will it?” Weybridge said. “If you say so.”

  Malpas
s assumed a look of long-suffering patience. “You’re not being reasonable this morning, David.”

  “According to your reports, I don’t have any reason, period.” That much he believed, and wished that he did not. He longed for a sense of his own past, of a childhood and friends and family. What if I am an orphan, or the victim of abuse? he asked himself, and decided that he would rather have such painful memories than none at all. “What’s on your mind, David?”

  “Nothing,” he insisted. There were more of the broken images shifting at the back of his mind, most of them senseless, and those that were coherent were terrifying. He had the impression of a man—himself?—kneeling beside a shattered body, pausing to cut off the ears and nose of the corpse. Had he done that? Had he seen someone do that? Had he been told about it? He couldn’t be sure, and that was the most frightening thing of all.

  “Tell me about it,” Malpass offered. “Let me help you, David.”

  It was all he could do to keep from yelling that his name was not David. But if it was not, what was it? What could he tell them to take the place of David?

  “You look terrible. What is it?” Malpass bent over him, his middle-aged features creased with anxiety. “Is there anything you can tell me?”

  Weybridge struck out with his arm, narrowly missing Malpass. “Leave me alone!”

  “All right. All right.” Malpass stepped back, holding up his hands placatingly. “You need rest, David. I’ll see that you get it. I’ll send someone in to you.”