Nothing, nothing, nothing!
What might it be, then? She went back to the thing on the table. She had picked the part of it up that appeared designed to fit against the head and heard buzzings and beeps. She did this again. The buzzing lingered for a moment, then became a series of beeps.
Pressing buttons, she eventually got a voice saying, “The number you have dialed, 3336699, is not in service. Please check the number and try again.”
She pressed the number the man had shouted. “The number you have dialed requires that a one be dialed first.”
She did it again.
“Heartstrings Music, your order, please.”
“Hey, sister, put Leo on the line.”
“Excuse me.”
“Gimme Leo, sister.”
“You want the Patterson album?”
“Say again, sweetheart? I’m not getting your drift.”
“Do you want the Patterson special?”
It was gibberish. Lilith put the device back in its cradle. Gentle tears rained down on the machine. How she hated this world! Oh, what a hideous, confusing, impossible place! She stood up, went to the window, stared out across the cliffs carved with windows, and screamed.
Outside, birds were flushed by the sound. On a roof across the way, men stopped their work and held their ears, then looked with wide eyes in the direction of this place. She stepped back out of view. She threw herself back onto the sleeping couch.
Suddenly there was a noise. It was a bell ringing very rapidly, repeating itself in intervals. It seemed to invite her to pick up the speaking instrument. She did so.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Perdu, we have you checking out today.”
What did this mean? She had no idea. “Perdu” could be the name of the creature she’d stunned and later eaten, which had been in here when she arrived. Its remains were dust on the floor of the clothing cupboard.
“Okay, mister.”
“Okay! Well, actually it’s three-thirty, and we do need the room.”
“Sure thing, kid.”
“So when will you be out?”
“I will be out when, so okay.”
“Excuse me?”
“Okay, kid, we’ll do it your way.”
“Uh, I’ll send up a bellman.”
“You do that, sweetheart.”
She replaced the speaking and listening piece into its cradle. What to do now? Her one object was to find that exquisite blooded creature, who represented hope and life for her. But the place was a vast maze, and everything was so mysterious. Where might she be if not at the other end of the stated number?
She whipped around, startled by tapping. What was it? At the door, a persistent tapping, then repeated more loudly. She went closer, listened. Breathing through nostrils slightly closed by swelling. Tired, yet young breathing. A male. And yes, she smelled its skin.
She went into the clothing cupboard and drew on some of Perdu’s clothes. She chose the ones that seemed most in keeping with her station. The dress glittered with tiny bits of metal sewn to it, and clung to her form very, very tightly.
The tapping came again, louder yet. To the breathing, add muttered words, “Fuckin’bitch…c’mon…” Taptaptap! Taptaptap!
She put on bright red sandals with tall spikes inexplicably fixed to the heels and went lurching across to the door. Who would want to wear such things?
Taptaptap!
She opened the door to a young man in black clothing.
“Miss Perdu, they sent me up to help you with your bags.”
The creature had a nice flush. Too bad she was quite full. As he regarded her, she watched the pupils expand. For what reason was she surprising him? She stepped back, allowing him into the room. She did not want to appear unusual. The humans would destroy her in an instant, she was certain of it.
“You going to a party, ma’am?”
“I am going to a party.”
“Okay.”
She wondered what this “party” might be.
He moved to the cupboard, then turned around.
“Where are they?”
“They?”
“Your bags. Aren’t you checking out?”
“I am checking out.”
“But your clothes—everything’s still hung up.”
“You got it, baby.”
“You need to pack. Do you understand English?”
“Sure thing.”
He muttered, “The hell you do.” Then he said, “Where are you from?”
“Egypt.”
“Oh, boy. Look, I’m gonna help you.” He removed a large, black case from the cupboard, then took some of the clothing and laid it on the couch. “You remember, you packed before you came here?”
“You better believe it.”
“Look, my guess is, you have somebody who packs for you at home. I can do this, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay by me.”
He began putting the clothing in the cases that he brought out of the cupboard. His busy hands pushed the dust off the bottoms of the cases, the dust of the real Perdu. He could have massaged Lilith with those strong young hands, but she never wanted to be touched by a human again.
She followed him into the narrow, unadorned corridor. He carried Mrs. Perdu’s materials on a gleaming brass platform that rolled along on wheels, a very pretty workman’s tool. Then they went into another machine, a small room that had a sliding door. It was like the little moving room aboard Seven Stars, and after a moment the doors slid open again. The man pushed his platform with the bags upon it out of the room. Lilith followed, trying to conceal her wonder at the opulence of the hall that spread before them.
Thus did she descend into the glittering, eerie netherworld of man.
You think you have something decent happening at last, and it all goes to hell immediately. What stupid piece of shit had dropped that tab on him? Some jerk that didn’t want him at Stuy, but why not? What was the matter with him that he didn’t know? He paced his room. God, but it was small. All these Leo posters, the junk of an infatuated child. But her concert was tonight and everything, and he wanted to be there so damn much. Just to see her. It wasn’t much to ask, but when you’re dealing with absolute, total grounding, it’s a lot. Didn’t they realize that she hadn’t performed in public since he was a little kid? You never got to see her except on the tube, that was the thing. Shit, though, what would it be—four seconds of watching her run down a red carpet and into a club where he was not allowed?
That Mal had done it. He’d given him the rave flyer, then dropped his tab on him when all of a sudden there were these cops there. Mal Sweeter, that was his name. Sweeter, yeah. Yeah, real sweeter, you prick. Prickface asshole.
He’d been signed up for Classical Lit and Particle Physics and everything, dammit. He’d e-mailed Jack and Sherry and all the kids, they were going to all meet in the city next weekend and do a rave with him and then go back to his place and make this incredible breakfast and crash for the day. He never went outside the law. A CIA kid didn’t have latitude, and he respected that. He could rave, but not do drugs or drink, never, no way. It could affect somebody’s career, and there was no way he’d ever do anything to hurt his mom and dad.
“Believe it,” he shouted into the silence of his room. He’d been in here since they’d returned from the city at four A.M., and he was as hungry as hell. “Mom?” It wasn’t that he was mad at them—they’d been very understanding. Dad had said, “I choose to believe my son,” and that had meant a lot after two hours in a holding tank with a bunch of scared kids and scum the likes of which he had never even imagined existed before. He’d just been so damn embarrassed, that was it. He’d ridden all the way up here in the backseat, not saying a word. He’d been congealing inside. He wished he could be in the trunk.
When he got up at ten, they were gone, and they’d now been gone all day. Well, that was about par. First, he loses the best thing he ever had in his life because he got royally screwed, then whe
n he can finally face them and try to explain, they’re gone.
He went downstairs. The house was quiet. So where were they? Off on some mission, probably. He didn’t even know what they did. It involved investigating people, that much he knew. But who and why, he had no idea. Dad had explained to him how “need-to-know” keeps secrets where they belong, but he would at least like to have known if their job was dangerous.
He was in the kitchen when the phone rang.
“Mom!”
“Hi, hon, I’m on my cell. We’re just about buried in work, and we’ve got a concert tonight, so we’re going to change down here and then go straight on.”
“What’re you gonna see?”
“Your heartthrob, Leo herself. It’s not your father’s kind of music, but we got given the tickets, so he really can’t say no.”
It was as if his soul had just drained out of his body and buried itself forever six feet under.
“Ian?”
“Mom—”
“Honey?”
“Mom, I…I…you guys have a good time.”
“Well, I will. You know how his nibs hates anything post about 1790.” She stopped. He listened. The phone in his hand felt like some kind of a lifeline. “Oh, hon, you’re disappointed.”
He forced himself to be steady and solid. His voice would not break. “Yeah,” he said, and listened to the word shatter like glass.
“These tickets were given to us by a very wealthy man, and we can’t just not show up. They cost thousands.”
“I know what they cost. Ten grand to the Environment Fund for each one.”
“The Environment Fund, is that it?”
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter if I’m grounded, does it? Even though I didn’t do anything except get shafted by some jerk.”
“Hon, we would take you if we could. But—”
“You and I could’ve gone, Mom. He doesn’t even want to go. He hates Leo.”
“It’s a working evening for us.” It was Dad’s voice, rumbling down the line.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, buddy. I just want you to know, it’s in the line of work. We’re going because we have to.”
“Dad, this may sound crazy to you—”
“Try me.”
“Could I come down and watch? Be in the crowd outside?”
“Son—”
“We could go out afterward and have a late supper together, then all stay at the apartment.”
He should have asked Mom, he definitely should not have done it this way, he’d been a total fool.
“I don’t think—”
“Okay, forget it.”
“I got you out of night court at four in the morning, and no, I do not think you should break grounding before twenty-four hours are up. Watch it on TV.”
“It’s not on TV.”
“With that publicity hound, I’d have thought it would be.”
When he said that, angry sparks shot through Ian. He managed a polite good-bye and hung up the phone. For a moment, he thought that he could not be angrier at his dad. Nobody ever said Paul Ward wasn’t arrogant. He’d sit in there staring and not smiling and not even lift a hand in applause. That’s exactly what would happen.
Damn Dad and damn the entire world.
Except…
No, he shouldn’t do this. No, they’d be sure to call here at some point, and…he could forward the phone to his cell. Simple.
But no, they’d get back way before he did.
Except…
He could just see the entrance, then take the next train home. He’d be here in plenty of time. And at least—well, wasn’t this a little crazy, to want this much just to see some girl from a distance who you would never touch, you would never speak to, who would never know you existed.
He hammered numbers into the phone, waited for his cell to ring, then hung them both up. Deed done, he was on his way to the damn promised land!
Lilith was made to stand before an altar with other supplicants, and soon found herself confronted by a heavily scented priest with a blue silk ribbon knotted neatly around his neck. She had fallen back on lack of knowledge of English to let the acolytes conduct her through the ritual. She was enmeshed in a whole series of arcane acts involving small inscribed shields that were kept in a packet that, it initially developed, she had left behind in the room.
The young male had retrieved it, and now the priest was completing his rituals with one of the shields. What material was it made of that caused them to value it so? It had not the beauty of gold or lapis lazuli. In fact, she’d never seen anything quite like it before, and there were a dozen of them in the leather packet the young man had handed her with such pride. And this ritual of the priest—what might it mean? Afterward he smiled at her, so she assumed that whatever he had read from her shield had offered good portents.
Man, always calling on his gods, looking to the skies or the entrails of sheep or the blowing of the leaves upon an errant wind for guidance—did he not know, even yet, that time unfolded into the silence of God, and destiny had another name called chance?
“May I call you a cab?” the young man asked.
The intonation suggested a question. Apparently he wished to address her in some new manner, now that the priest had given her the required blessing.
“You may call me a ‘cab,’” she said.
Improbably, he rushed into the roadway with a small brass whistle and began blowing it furiously. She was well aware by now that she was at sea among a vast number of customs that were quite beyond her understanding. This would require vigilance and care. Every moment, every new and bizarre request, presented another danger.
Soon, a yellow carriage pulled up at her feet. As a newly invested acolyte or priestess or whatever she was, it seemed that she was expected to go about in this thing. There were many of them on the road; it appeared to be a commonplace enough privilege. She entered the machine.
The young man stared at her. Another man put the cases in a compartment behind. Of a sudden, the smile disappeared from the young man’s face. “It takes all kinds,” he finally said with a snarl, and slammed the door.
“All kinds,” she replied as the vehicle pulled in among the other vehicles of the honored.
“Where to, lady?”
“To where.”
“Where you goin’?”
“Allô.”
“Shit, lady, you don’t speak English. What you do speak? Parlez-vous français?”
His incantation was in two languages, she could discern that readily enough. After the conquest and the arrival of the Greek ruler Ptolemaeus, the Egyptians had begun to speak Hellene. Perhaps these had also been conquered, and this “parlez-vous” was a snippet of the language of the conqueror, used as the Egyptians had used Hellene, to display their familiarity with the court of the new pharaoh.
“Parlez-vous français,” she responded.
“Ah, bon! Je suis d’Haïti. Si, où est-ce que nous allons?”
“Si, nous allons.”
“Pardon? Mais où?”
“Mais? Ah, si!”
“Que?”
The meanings of these words were unclear to her. She struggled to devise a sensible-sounding response. After the ritual, she had been escorted into the vehicle. Now all the questioning made it clear that she had to instruct the driver. Then she recalled the use of the word change, by the young man when they were still in the room of the woman Perdu. “I change,” she said.
“Okay, back to English. You change. Where do you go?”
“I go where I change.”
He hit the steering wheel.
“Leo Patterson,” she said. It was a name. It was also where she wanted to go.
“You mean the Music Room? You’re going to the concert at the Music Room?”
“The Music Room.”
Muttering spells, he accelerated into traffic. The vehicle moved past an array of amazing structures. They were not cliffs carved with rooms as she had first
believed, but enormous constructions built by the hand of man. As she had been by the bridge and the great statue in the harbor, she was awed by these human things.
The towers of this place jutted up into a sky of bright, hard blue, smeared with racing white clouds. The air was colder than it had been at home in many a long year, and she enjoyed the feeling of it on her face as it blew in the window.
Suddenly, looking up at the sky, feeling the cool, she realized that she was remembering something from home. It was only a fleeting recollection, but she knew, now, that she had gone beneath a flowering plum tree to sleep, and in her sleep had dreamed, and was dreaming still….
“You okay?”
She used the intonations and accents she had learned from the SONY. “You got that right, buster.”
“Hey, Lauren Bacall!”
She had so little idea of what he had just said that she did not even try to reply.
Her heart was leaping in her chest, her skin was prickling, and she felt the most poignant, acute sense that she was missing something important, that another, beloved life—her real life—was passing her by.
“Lady, you can’t be taking all that luggage to the Music Room. You’re goin’ to a hotel. Have to be. So, you tell me, what hotel?”
That was familiar, “hotel.” It was the name of the temple in which she had lived and worshiped. “Hotel Royalton.”
“No, the Royalton’s the one we’re leaving. Bye-bye, Royalton, get it? Finished. No more.”
Ah, yes. “Leo Patterson,” she repeated, hoping that this might elicit further results.
This was apparently the correct response, because the driver’s face illuminated with a broad smile of a kind she had not seen in a very long time. The humans were monsters, but a smile is a smile, and she could not help but respond in kind.
“Leo lives at the Sherry,” he said.
“Yes.”
They went up and down some streets, crossed a wide plaza, and pulled up before one of the great towers. “I can drive the wagon,” Lilith said. “I have done it before.”
She could see in a small mirror the expression on the driver’s face, which revealed that this comment was not expected. So her thought that he had stopped from fatigue was wrong.
Lilith’s Dream: A Tale of the Vampire Life Page 23
