Paul looked sharply at Bocage. “So?”
“In the blood a little, I think.”
Paul thought that he should have been amazed, but he wasn’t. There was really so much they didn’t know about the vampire, and therefore about the world we live in. How long had the vampire been here, and was it something that had come from some other place, or was it an earthly evolution? Why were there people like him, and now apparently also like this Egyptian, who also bore elements of the strange, complex blood of the vampire in their own veins, but without any corresponding need to feed on their fellow man?
Paul’s blood contained an array of six anomalous cells, the most important of which was the T-4 lymphocyte which gave his immune system extraordinary reactivity and power. The Sarah Roberts papers revealed numerous experiments involving attempts to transfer this cell into the human body. She could achieve a temporary antiaging effect, but it didn’t last more than a few hours.
Paul’s platelets also had a life span of years rather than days and were extraordinarily proactive in healing. A wound requiring stitches in a normal person would heal on its own in hours.
Unfortunately, as strong as all this made him, his heart had simply endured too much stress over the years, and his ravenous lust for red meat, nearly raw, had taken its toll in blood vessel damage.
He was even more interested to meet General Karas now. Maybe he knew something about the origins of people like himself and Paul.
“Paul,” Bocage asked as they went toward the waiting plane, “have I upset you?”
“I’m thinking.”
“I had no idea there were others,” Becky said.
“I was surprised when he told me.”
“I didn’t think anything could surprise you,” Paul said, laughing a little. Bocage was an impressive man, highly skilled. When Paul followed Miriam Blaylock from Bangkok to Paris with his old team, ignoring the French operation, Bocage had trapped them all very neatly. He had insisted on something that in those days had been complete anathema to Paul—that they work together. Paul was obsessed with how easy it was for some vampires to blend in with human society, and he had lived in constant fear of moles and plants.
Jean’s professionalism had defeated his fears. They had sterilized Paris together, shoulder to shoulder, working their way through the vast complex of catacombs and ancient mines that twisted beneath the city, in the process rooting out over a hundred of the creatures. Subsequently, missing persons cases had become as rare here as they now were in New York, down from thousands a year to just a couple hundred, with few of those remaining open for long.
Paul saw that they would be on a Citation III, which was standing outside the glass wall at the far end of the lobby they had just entered. The plane was white, in Egyptian military livery. He knew planes, and this jet would get them to Cairo in about six hours. Good.
There were no longer any customs to worry about. They had gone from the world of commercial air travel to another level altogether, where the hindrances of borders more or less evaporated. Their luggage, for example, would have caused no end of official questions, given that it consisted, among other things, of military-grade satellite navigation equipment, night-vision goggles, special microphones and listening devices, climbing equipment, forger’s tools, and a subminiaturized drone aircraft protected by diplomatic seals. The drone folded into a case the size and shape of a golf bag, and could remain aloft for six hours without recharging its fuel cell. The thing about the craft that was so valuable was that the vampire’s body temperature dropped steadily between feedings, and the drone carried a temperature-sensitive camera that could easily identify one from thousands of feet away, even in a crowd.
The legendary general met them at the door of the plane. “Colonel Ward,” he said, “Mrs. Ward. It’s really a privilege.” As they continued into the plane, he added, “I only wish that the circumstances could be more pleasant.”
The moment they sat down, he spoke into the intercom. As the plane started off, the steward secured the door.
General Karas was a trim man, his eyes set in a perpetual expression of surprise. His uniform was exquisitely tailored, but rumpled from constant movement. He had a cocked, restless quality, an uneasiness that seemed to dominate his personality.
“I thought we’d gotten them all,” he said, “until this wretched situation arose.”
“We’ve been watching missing persons reports for fifteen years,” Paul said. “We never saw a trace of the old pattern reemerging in the United States.”
“How many lives have you saved? In America?”
“Over the fifteen years,” Becky said, “about fifty thousand.”
“My God, that’s what I keep telling my government. But nobody wants this. Nobody is interested. Nothing like that in Egypt, they say. That’s why they give the assignment to a Copt.” He rolled his eyes and swept a nervous hand along the leather arm of his chair, and the imposing general suddenly looked like an agitated little boy. “We took our last one just months ago. It had been living in the Corniche, can you imagine, in Cairo! We found things in there—coin from the reign of Cleopatra, for the love of all that is holy. All manner of treasure in that filthy hole. It will go to the Department of Antiquities.” He leaned forward, his eyes suddenly glaring, his hands now gripping the chair arms as if he was considering launching himself toward them. “We nailed it to the door of its damned hole, to draw others. And we watched. This new one showed up about six months later. It had already killed a child and possibly a Bedouin in the desert, my God. The thing about it is that it is magnificently beautiful—tall and slim and blond. Very powerful and athletic—you should see it run, leap—my God. You would think that it was an American damned movie star. It took the child”—he made a sipping motion, his pinkie extended—“as easily as milady at her tea.”
Jean said, “You’re sure it came out of the desert?”
Karas gave him a careful, appraising look. “You know, in Egypt—you would be surprised, I am sure—we keep better records than your media would have you believe. We are not damned third-world idiots, chewing rice and scuttling about in a perpetual state of confusion.” He raised an eyebrow, giving his face an almost comical cast, as if he wanted to lessen the criticism implied in his remark. Then he laughed, the easy, sophisticated chuckle of a man used to power. “So I can say with certainty,” he continued, “that we have not had any sort of pattern of missing persons that would fit the existence of another vampire. How this one got to Egypt and where it came from are questions that I would very much like to answer. Except that it was here to eat, of course.”
“It fits the description of the one that appeared in New York a few days ago,” Becky said.
Karas stared at her. Paul had not often seen such careful appraisal in a human face. This man was highly intelligent, that was clear. “Ah, it’s in your country.”
“Perhaps,” Paul said.
Karas raised his eyebrows.
“It’s possible that it’s returned, in the company of a blooded woman…and our son.”
Karas gazed down at the front of his tunic, nervously dusting his medals with his fingers. “I have a daughter, Hamida,” he said in a soft, caressing tone. “Like me—like you, Paul, but worse, because my wife Violet, also—” He smiled, as tormented an expression as Paul had ever seen. So his wife was a carrier, too. That meant that the daughter would have even more of the blood factors than either parent. She wouldn’t be as extreme a case as Ian, but it would be in that direction. “I have also wondered what the effect would be, if she came into—how do you say—proximity, yes—proximity to a vampire.”
“It was like some kind of black magic,” Becky said. “You have no idea.”
They flew on, heading east beneath a hard gray sky, the stately waves of the Mediterranean sweeping beneath them. At length the steward served a meal of tangy mulukhiya soup with rice, followed by a variety of shawarma meats and vegetables. Afterwards, there was coffee, serve
d with a variety of um-ali, small, intensely flavored sweets.
Paul ate, and watched Becky eating, and thought that it was the first real meal they’d had since Ian’s abduction. He hadn’t been able to eat on the plane over, let alone before that. Now, though, knowing that they were going into action, that they were getting closer to Ian—they were both hungry, and that was good.
The sun was glaring into the windscreen of the cockpit when the intercom warbled. Karas listened for a moment, then said, “We’re landing in twenty minutes. And there is good news.”
Paul felt Becky stiffen. Ian had been found wandering the streets of Cairo, or asleep in a hotel room, or safe somewhere else, but safe, please God, safe.
Ian had not been found. None of them had been found. But Leo’s plane had been located. It was at the airport at Beni Suef, a hundred klicks south of Cairo. The pilots, now under house arrest, were more than willing to talk to the authorities. They were being held at the Mena House in Cairo. Karas concluded, “Her plane is now impounded, of course.”
“I wonder if we should do that?”
Karas smiled. “It’s on Egyptian soil illegally.”
“Impounding the plane brings in customs. What if they give the case to the police?”
Karas sank into thought. “The relationship between my unit and the police is complicated. We are old Egypt—by which I mean, men from before the coming of the Muslims. No Muslims in my unit. The consequence is, we have not unlimited power. We must let the military and the police deal with the plane according to established protocols.”
“You can’t risk explanations, is what you’re saying. Your system’s just like ours—a tarbaby.”
“A tarbaby is what?”
“Something that sticks to you when you touch it.”
He laughed heartily then, and quickly finished his coffee as the steward cleaned up. “Us Copts, we are a tarbaby for Egypt! That’s quite good. You know, I’m not actually even a Copt. My family is unbroken in its line, from the time before. Kawaat is our forbear, the eldest son of Khu’fu.” He laughed softly. “My great-great-grandfather two hundred times removed was a bastard of this prince.”
Paul watched the man, saw the sadness in his eyes, the complex little smile that played there. Normally, he would have found it impossible to believe such a statement. But with this man, no.
“That’s four thousand years ago,” Becky said. “You’re saying your family goes back that far?”
Karas gave her a careful look. “In Egypt, such things are not strange. Julius Caesar was a guest in our house.” He lifted a glass. “We gave him wine kept cool by being immersed in a spring.” The smile returned, blossomed. “This, I believe, is refrigerated, forgive me.”
“Being immersed in a spring is better?”
“The coolness is softer, you know.”
The plane shuddered, the engine noise dropped, and they began descending toward Cairo, the great city that lay almost hidden in the clouds far below.
Chapter Fourteen
The Underworld
Ian lay naked, deliciously exposed, in a state of fairy-tale wonder…aside from being as hungry as a horse. Beside him and keeping him warm in the cool of this strange cave of Lilith’s, Leo was cuddled close. He lay thinking, full of questions about this place and these people. The cave was full of things that looked ancient Egyptian to him, wonderful chairs and divans, exotic linen hangings, all of it, if not exactly crisp and new, then certainly serviceable. But why nothing modern? And, strangest of all, where was the kitchen, and where oh where was the damned food?
They had some stuff from the plane, but let’s face it, they’d been in here for days, and he was beginning to wonder if linen was edible. There was water, at least. You got it in these fabulously carved diorite bowls she had around, out of pools with beautiful mosaics of fish and lobsters and crabs and octopi in them. Getting a drink made him hungry.
The thing about it that was good—that was actually amazing—was that both of these women were totally sold on him, to the point that they sort of competed for him in a laughing kind of a way. He turned on his side and buried his face in Leo’s neck, just to be sure he still could.
She sighed and stretched. A week ago, she had been this distant, iconic figure, a picture to gaze at during lonely sessions with Sally Five. Now here she was in the warm, sweet-scented flesh. She was a kid who had been made hard by everybody always wanting stuff from her. She told him she was thirty-one, but twenty-five was a more believable number when you saw her up close. She was really cuddly. This was a girl who wanted to be held. If he whispered “I love you,” to her, she would look at him with damp, sex-besotted eyes.
Lilith had a more sort of servile approach. She acted like he was some kind of a god or a king or something. Him, a kid from East Mill, N.Y., the son of a couple of civil service types—let’s face it, not exactly somebody you knelt in front of and hugged around the waist, for the love of Mike. She would look up with stars in her eyes. He’d smile down at her and quietly wonder what the hell?
If he listened carefully, he could hear her breathing right now, hear the faint swish of her flowing robes as she moved about the room. Somehow, in a darkness so deep that he could not see a finger an inch from his eye, she was pacing like a restless animal in a zoo. Back and forth she went, back and forth.
She was not so easy to understand. Sometimes she was just as vulnerable and needful as Leo. Other times she was harsh, cold. She had long, dark moods that didn’t make any sense. At times—like now—she was downright creepy. And what was she doing living out here like this in this crazy place, anyway? He’d asked her why she was in a damn cave and not in a house, and where in ding-dong was the food? Her answer was to hold him and gaze at him and cry.
They’d had fun in the plane, teaching Lilith to speak better English. This “Here’s looking at you, kid” approach of hers was not working. She claimed to have learned it from watching Humphrey Bogart movies, an obvious lie. No doubt she’d had a bad teacher, and some sort of Egyptian rule of etiquette prevented her from saying so. Or pride. She had enormous pride. At the least sign that she’d made some sort of mistake, her chin would rise, her alabaster cheeks would flush the color of faded roses, and her voice would go all clipped and sullen. Lilith had never made love to him, but there was hardly time, was there, given that he and Leo did it probably five times a day.
He buried his face in Leo’s neck, inhaling the sweetness of her skin. Her lips moved, she muttered garbled dream talk. As many times as he’d done it with her, the hollow-gut thrill of it still made him squirm as his body became ready again. He lay an arm across her spongy breasts and sought her lips with his. She uttered a complicated little sound, a happy sound, and drew him close, wrapping her arms around him.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you,” he whispered. It felt warm right down into the middle of his heart. He laid his lips against her cheek, felt her smile come up under them. Then she turned and they were kissing. His spirit slipped on light and secret steps into the world of her spirit.
This was love, and this was amazing. It was his Leo dream, and he was living it. One thing he knew about this kid: she might be a great lay, but she was no more experienced than him. That made it even more fun, to discover great stuff together.
Lily would watch, sitting in a chair with her chin in her hand, and tap her foot if it took longer than she liked. So he said nothing to the swooping form out there in the dark, as he slid closer to Leo. He let her know with a gentle thrust of his hips that he was ready. There came in response a low murmur, then a sigh—comfortable, silky, prolonged—that was one of the sexiest things she did, the way it made him feel so wanted and so welcome. He went on top of her, felt her fingers caressing him down below, then entered her under their gentle guidance.
He went slowly, proceeding into their private territory of pleasure by careful degrees. After his first bursting tries, he’d learned to prolong it by breathing deep a
nd stroking slow, and if he started to come too quick, he stopped and lay absolutely still and pictured in his mind the pasty, pimple-spotted face of the Child in his sound cubicle way back down the tunnel to nowhere that ended at East Mill High.
Despite the white heat of the situation, that was one thought that could be counted on to cool him down every time. So he did it now, while she squirmed and moaned and whispered, “Hit me, hit me hard as you can, baby, oh please….”
And then he felt, along the short hairs of his neck, moving air. It was as if a bat had fluttered past. When it came again, he gasped and jerked back—and bumped against Lilith, who was looming over them. But then her lips replaced her breath, and he felt her tongue against the skin of his neck. She was more beautiful than Leo, much more, and he had wondered what she would be like and why she wouldn’t do it. But nothing had been said.
Sometimes Leo and Lilith went off alone into the depths of the cave, and when they came back, Leo was always flushed and sweating and didn’t want to make love. So he figured they were getting off somehow together, but he was batteries not included.
Now Lilith’s hands came firmly along the sides of his buttocks and lifted him out of Leo, who made a little sound in her throat—“oh.” And then Lilith, who might as well have the eyes of a cat, was under him instead of Leo, and trembling like a girl.
It hit Ian that she was a newbie, and he said, “Oh, hey,” trying to put a reassuring smile in his voice. “Ready to try me on for size, babe?”
Lilith had paced and sweated, trying to stay away, smelling their rising heat and juices, feeling her own vaginal muscles undulate helplessly as she touched herself and listened. She dared not let him find out how different she was, not until he was introduced to blood and eating comfortably and so hers.
He was not hers now. There was danger. He had never fed, but he could feed, and when he did, his blood would open like a flowing, liquid flower and fill him with the exquisite sensations of his sleeping Keeper being. He would never return to the eating of foliage and animal flesh, not after he had tasted the liquid flesh of man.
Lilith’s Dream: A Tale of the Vampire Life Page 28
