Here came the other one, the one called Abdel. His face was distended, his hand was brandishing a gun. She said, “What is he to you?” But it was too late. Behind him there were many more of them, all furious, all clamoring after her.
She ran along the narrow iron path, above the deck of the ship. But then there were more of them at the other end.
Well, her stomach had been a fool, had it not, and now she was well and truly trapped. She could fight them all, could survive their shots, but in the end forty or fifty human beings would overpower her.
So be it. She stood awaiting them. And they came. Hoping that they would put her away and enable her to live another day, she offered them no resistance.
She let them carry her, thinking that they would take her into the bowels of the ship and store her there. But they did not do it. Instead, they went to the side. Only when they were preparing to heave her overboard did she understand what was about to come.
But this could not be! They must not, no—she cried out, she met Abdel’s eyes, she howled her terror of the sea, “No! No—”
She was falling, the wind roaring around her, the sea coming up, black and full of phosphorescence from the ship’s wake.
She hit with a splash and a tumult of bubbles, going deep, deep into the inky water. All around her was the thrumming of the powerful vessel. She knew that she had to get away from it, to avoid whatever slashed and thrashed the water to push it along. Her legs pumped, her arms pulled, and she went deep, speeding like a fish herself, until the thrumming had receded to a mere vibration.
Her lungs began to ache. She must breathe, but if she breathed water, she knew that her dying would begin.
Kicking furiously, she rose to the surface. Her chest was burning when she finally broke into the air. She took long, trembling mouthfuls of it, filling her lungs with the living scent of the sea.
Then she was alone, and it was silent on the gentle swell of evening, and the stars were her only companions…and the dark water, of course, that now possessed her.
On the near distance, a huge shadow moved, its outline defined by brilliant points of light. She cried out, bellowing for them to come back, shrieking and kicking as if to somehow rise from the water and run to the ship.
But they did not come back, and she could not walk on water. The swells battered her and covered her. She came up spitting from one, only to be struck by the next. In the cold, she felt a great body brush her roughly and powerfully, and saw gleaming daggers of teeth and a cold, empty eye.
Chapter Seven
Dark Journeys
Paul lay gazing at Becky’s sleeping form. The only light came from the late moon. Beyond the window, the limbs of the backyard oak rattled in a freshening wind. An owl mumbled. Far away, a night freight’s horn moaned its passage through the dark valleys of the Endless Mountains. In the moonlight, Becky appeared to Paul as a gathering of miracles upon the sheets, her face filled with the peace of sleep in an accustomed bed, her wide spread arms exposing her breasts and their secrets, her open legs revealing more.
He leaned into her warmth and laid his lips on one of those full and sweetly curved breasts. A small sound of surprise came from her, followed by the soft mmm that signaled that she was awake, and yes. Her hand sought him, and she raised him with her cool fingertips. Then they joined together, two melding into one silver, moonlit body.
Pleasure is only the first gate passed through by lovers as familiar as they were. If they ever think about it, such lovers might say that their lovemaking explores a deep connection between them, sets old wires to humming, perhaps, in new ways. So when he emptied himself and whispered, “I love you,” it was as if he had never whispered that before, and the little familiar kiss that replied—it was as if that was the first kiss.
He lay back. They were silent. Finally, he turned on his side, faced her. “I’m not gonna be getting to sleep.”
“Me neither.”
“Can we call him? Do you think it’s okay?”
“At four in the morning?”
“Goddammit, I can’t live like this! I can’t live without my boy, Becky.”
“He needs some space, Paul. No matter how hard it is for us, we have to give it to him.”
“The older he gets, the more I see how vulnerable he is and how just damned unlikely his whole life is, and it’s breaking my heart, honey. It’s just tearing my heart in pieces.” He took a breath, settled himself inside, forced his voice not to waver as he spoke. “I want him to have a good life. I want him to fall in love and have kids and see them grow up. Oh, Christ, Becky.”
She held him to her, her hands barely covering his big shoulders. She was glad that his anger at Ian had faded, even if it had to be replaced by this misery.
“I’m going to New York.”
That made her open her eyes and sit up. “No, you aren’t.”
“I swear to God, he’s in trouble. I can feel it. He’s gone to some damn club and done some drugs, and he’s in trouble.”
“Paul, hey.”
He got up, started throwing on his clothes.
“Paul, it’s not your concern.”
“He’s my child, and he’s not of age. It’s my concern.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Paul, give him some space! Ian needs breathing room.”
“Ian needs his dad.”
“Paul, he needed you the day before yesterday when you went flying off to Langley. That’s when he needed you.”
“A kid is gonna get killed in New York. Anything could happen.”
“And it probably will. And Ian will not get killed.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because he’s Ian! For the love of God, Paul, you know what his assets are. He’s smart and down-to-earth and as straight as a street. He’ll survive. More than survive, he’ll probably thrive. If he’s at some late-night party right now, I hope he’s raising hell, Paul, and having lots and lots of fun. You want to go down to see Ian, you go down later.”
“Where is he?”
“We’ve been through that.”
“He’s my son!”
“Why don’t you go down and fix some coffee?” she said mildly. “I have a surprise for you. I’ll give it to you then.”
“What in hell is it? A pussywhipping?”
“Don’t be so crude,” she said. “Anyway, I’m not the type.”
He embraced her, and she let him, and loved it. They kissed, and he drank her eyes. “I wish I could learn how to be pissed off at you,” he whispered.
“I’m glad you can’t.”
In one of the abrupt changes so typical of him, he suddenly got up. He went to the window, drawn, it seemed, by his own restless nature. She doubted if she knew half of what went on in the mind of her husband.
He got his robe and slippers on and padded down the creaking staircase to the kitchen.
Soon the aroma of coffee began filling the house, and the tang of bacon. He was making a predawn breakfast, God love him. Afterward, she knew, they would come back to bed and maybe doze until eight. Then another day of companionship and work would begin.
Enclosing herself in her fluffiest robe, she went down and joined him. “Oh, you sweetie,” she said as he laid a plate before her with a flourish.
“So, what’s the surprise?”
“The surprise is, I got us two impossible tickets for a concert.”
His face didn’t fall. It became careful. He was a strict Bach and Mozart man. A lot of concerts just would not work for him.
“There’s a very intimate, very private concert being given for a thousand of Leo Patterson’s dearest friends, and we will be there.”
He poured the coffee, sat down, and said, “May I know how?”
“Your enemies at Langley fixed it up. These ducats involve a ten grand contribution to the Environment Fund, plus you have to be on the right list.”
“Which we most certainly are not.”
“But Mr. and Mrs. Richard Aker
s are, and we’re going in their place.”
“The Richard Akerses? Of General Financial?”
“The same. He’s friendly, more than happy to assist the Company in its endeavors.”
“Briggs okayed this?”
She had done a lot of backing and filling for her man. He was like all the old operational lions, completely incapable of handling the bureaucracy. “Briggs didn’t want you out. He just wanted you careful. It’s best not to go into his office and act like somebody who needs to be fitted for a straitjacket.”
“I didn’t! I was nice!”
“You did, and you weren’t nice. Did you know that he had your plane shadowed by F-15s all the way home? You scared him that badly.”
“Then he’s the one who’s crazy.”
“I convinced him that you don’t actually bite, at least not hard. I explained that I keep your teeth in a damn safety deposit box.”
He started what she knew would be the usual hopelessly misguided defense of his own indefensible foolishness. She held up her hand. “Now, you listen to me. No more going to Langley and throwing weight you don’t have around. Face this: you have been on an assignment that has turned up no results in years. None. It’s one of the great masterpieces of nonproductivity, to the point that the general opinion down there is that you’re a con man.”
“Oh, come on. They have my record.”
“You leave the bureaucrats to me. Is that understood?”
“I leave the throwing of weight around to you?”
“I repeat, you have about as much political weight down there as a birthday balloon full of helium. Nobody cares, Paul, except to the extent that they wish that you and all those blood-soaked boxes of operational records that go with you didn’t exist.”
“How much weight do you have? Given that you’re with me?”
“None of your business, but that’s beside the point. You are a good man with a gun, and you make Sherlock Holmes look like Goofy when it comes to detective work. But you are not—repeat, not—any damn good at all in the human relations department, as witness the terrified Mr. Briggs and your own bitter, infuriated son.”
“Okay! Okay! Admitted.”
“Again. How many times have we had this conversation?”
“Well—”
“A huge part of a marriage is when you realize that the bum is never going to change, not because he doesn’t want to, but because he can’t. He’s a big old brontosaurus, and that’s it.” She leaned across the table, put her hand on his cheek. “But he’s my big old brontosaurus, and I’m gonna take care of him. Keep him in his cage where he can’t scare the kiddies.”
He truly did not know how to react to this. He leaned back, sipping coffee and thinking just how very pleased he was that he was finally going to get close to that little vampire bitch Leo Patterson, in among her rich friends.
He made a gesture with his hand, shooting a gun.
“That better not be pointed at me.”
“At Leo.”
At exactly 7:00 A.M., Ian’s alarm rang. He reached out and pushed the button on top. Ian liked old-fashioned things, and he’d bought this clock at a secondhand store. Today was to be his first day at his new school, Stuyvesant High. It was the best public high school in Manhattan, and he’d managed to interview his way in, convincing the admissions officer that he could keep up with the fastest track the school offered. He was eager to start, hungry for the challenge.
The family story had been that they’d had to move to Manhattan suddenly because of a job transfer. Mom had backed him up brilliantly. She was as smooth a liar as you’d find. No doubt it came from living her life in the spy world. Funny, though, Dad was no good at all with a lie. When he bluffed in poker, everybody else folded. You’d have to be in a coma to miss that much blinking and leg crossing and harrumphing.
But Dad could walk into a room and notice the slightest change. He’d do it automatically. Ian had been curious about things that his friends were studying in prep school. Classical Lit, for example—their e-mails said it was dull as death, but what was it? He’d gotten down a book of ancient Roman poetry from, like, the second-to-top shelf of Dad’s study. He’d been reading it in his room when he’d heard floating up from below, “Not yet does parting summer gentle the sun’s steeds…” Dad had noticed the book’s disappearance, and was down there reciting a poem from it from memory.
Now Ian was at a school where there were courses like Classical Lit, so at least he could find out what was so dull about it. He wanted the privilege of hating what his friends hated. Except the truth was, he didn’t. He loved literature and poetry and art and music—especially music. He enjoyed everything from Palestrina to Patterson, and especially her.
As he made eggs in his tiny Pullman kitchen, he felt himself getting an erection and laughed aloud. Mom had told him it was okay to be like that. A seventeen-year-old boy is normal if he gets an erection because of any crazy reason. Looking at an egg white was fine, if in some weirdly convoluted way it reminded you of a fem you were crazy about. Or the sight of an apple, or a passing nun, for chrissakes, she’d said. It’s just being seventeen. Dad, on the other hand, did not talk about sex. He’d occasionally choke out a question like, “You doing okay in the down-below department?” Ian was tempted to say, “No, Dad, I’m not doing okay. My masturbation techniques are getting boring. Got any pointers?” Except he’d give Dad a stroke.
It was neat to sit down to his own self-made breakfast in his own apartment, and it would have been really fun if he hadn’t been getting tears in his plate. He did not want to cry because of Dad, but it just hurt like hell that it was turning out this way. It was like ocean currents you couldn’t even see were just pulling them apart.
He did not want to be alone here like this, hoping Mom would show up and visit, and just watching TV at night because he didn’t know anybody and it was totally uncool to go to the movies and stuff by yourself, like you were such a bump nobody would even be seen with you.
But he didn’t want East Mill ever again in his life, that dreary rundown high school full of would-be gas station attendants and burger flippers, and girls who stuck cigarettes behind their ears and thought you were ultimately cool if you did them a tab of X. Brigit Finney had gotten high on a Rolaid he’d shaved down. She’d danced for hours.
In the bathroom, he stared at his peach-fuzzy face. God give me a beard, God take away my friggin’ zits! Christ, there was one on the side of his nose. Thank you. Thank you so-o-o much.
When he squeezed it, blood came out and touched his lips. He wiped it away immediately. The taste of blood was like the smell of glue, awful and good at the same time. When he was a boy, he had secretly tasted his own blood, and once with Kev Moore, he had made up a blood brothers club, and they had cut each other’s fingers and held them together. The real reason for all this was so that he could suck Kev’s blood off his own finger to see what it tasted like. As long as he lived, he would never do that again.
All of a sudden, he realized that he was in a hurry. Where had the time gone? Without Mom to say, “Get yer fanny packed and yer tail in gear,” the time had just slipped through his fingers.
He ran down the four rumbling flights and along the narrow central corridor of the old row house where they’d found him his $1,750-a-month garret. At home, the same place would have been $300 a month.
Then, with shock and delight, he found himself facing New York in the morning. The traffic was roaring. Ninth Avenue was filled with sun. He bought a Post and hopped the bus, and read page 6 standing up, thinking just how extremely cool this was. He was going to do great, get excellent grades, and prove to Mom that she’d made the right decision, letting him do this. A kid living by himself and not getting into trouble or screwing up—that was his aim. Mom had said, “I trust you, Ian.” Ian had replied, “I swear to you, Mom, I’m gonna do it right.”
He kept this very much to himself, but he did not have it in him to break a vow. He just couldn’
t do it. When he swore something, it was just plain over. So he didn’t make many vows, knowing the way he felt about it.
But his vow didn’t prevent him from making friends at school or partying. Mom expected him to party pretty hard. It’d be way, way cool that he had his own apartment, and lots of kids would want to know him. He expected to be popular. Mom was so great.
Then he saw on page 6 that Leo was having an exclusive charity concert in a few nights. This was neat, this would be something to do—not go to it, for chrissakes, it probably cost in gold bars, but to go be a fan and cheer her on and make her feel great when she got out of her car and went in, that her people were there, and they loved her.
* * *
There had been a definite change in the rumble of the machinery that drove the bounding, filthy boat. Also, the relentless swaying of the thing seemed to be distinctly less. Lilith raised her head and looked miserably up toward the rectangle of light that was her only view out of the fish-filled hold. The hefty silver fish, their bodies cold and flaccid, came almost up to her neck. At the least sign of a crewman, she would immerse herself in them.
Alone in the sea, she had known the very worst moments of her life. At first, sea creatures had come, great slabs of darkness slicing through the water, sliding past her at a distance of inches. No matter that she sank, she had made herself absolutely still. Let them think her a log. Things had nosed her, pushed her about. No matter how much she wanted to struggle, she had remained still.
Eventually their visits had become less frequent. They had followed the ship, drawn by the offal it left in its wake, the scrapings of plates and flushings of toilets. She had wept in the lonely sea, her body trembling with the cold and the fear.
Almost from the beginning of her ordeal, she’d known that land lay somewhere to the west. The reason was that she could catch a scent of it from time to time, the faint odors of vegetation and smoke.
Lilith’s Dream: A Tale of the Vampire Life Page 15
