The II AM Trilogy Collection

by Christopher Buecheler

  “Can I … Naomi, what can I do to help?”

  Naomi looked over at her again, smiled, shrugged. “Once we’ve taken care of you, perhaps then we’ll worry about me. For now? The voices are silent when I’m with you. That helps.”

  “I don’t think that’s enough,” Two said.

  “You know what I want from you,” Naomi said, a trace of bitterness in her voice.

  “You know why I can’t give you that,” Two replied.

  “Yes. Don’t worry about me, Two. I’ve outlasted many voices. I’m still here.”

  “You think that I’m going to become another voice?”

  “It’s beginning to feel inevitable.”

  “I’m not planning on dying.”

  Naomi sighed again. “Not all of my voices belong to the dead.”

  Two could think of no response to this, so she shut down the computer and stood up.

  “Going to go punch things?” Naomi asked.

  “No, I think I’m going to take a bath and then go to bed. I … if you want, you could …”

  Naomi waited, listening. Two frowned at her own hesitance. Why was this so hard, after everything they had shared?

  “You could come with me, if you want,” she said.

  “What do you want?” Naomi asked her.

  Two really didn’t know what she wanted, so she acted not in the interest of the vampire girl – whom she did love, just not in the way that Naomi wanted. She acted to still Naomi’s voices, to what she could to help ease Naomi’s pain, knowing that in the long run she could do little more than add to it.

  “I want you with me,” Two told her, and Naomi smiled and stood.

  Chapter 26

  The Girl from the Desert

  When dusk came to Silifke on their second night there, it brought with it a respite from the heat of the day. There was no air conditioning in the hotel that Naomi had chosen for them, but the vampires didn’t mind. Two had tossed and turned in her bed, waking up several times during the day, lying naked atop her covers. Naomi spent the day not only under the covers, but in a nightgown, oblivious to Two’s discomfort. More than once during their daytime sleeping hours, Two had glanced over at her and felt waves of annoyance coupled with a deep envy.

  Now, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Two was standing in the shower, shivering under a deluge of cold water. She had finally rolled out of bed, unable to sleep any longer, and done her exercises. Once finished, she found herself sweating, not the slick and enjoyable post-workout, post-sex sheen, but the sticky midsummer kind that made her want to crawl out of her own skin. She had hurried to the bathroom and stepped under the cool water with relief.

  The bedroom’s cooler temperature, when she emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, was a pleasant surprise. The nerves she was feeling, also a surprise, were significantly less pleasant. Two didn’t know where this feeling of nervous anticipation was coming from; it was only a meeting with yet another vampire, something that she had now done many times and should certainly be used to. It was not even as if, upon successfully completing their task, they would be able to make any immediate changes. It would be a few days at least before they would be able to return to London, and Naomi had taken special care to remind Two that there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t have to wait for another council meeting before receiving Eadwyn’s permission.

  “That,” Two muttered to herself, sitting down on the edge of the bed, “would thoroughly suck.”

  Naomi made an inarticulate noise, rolled, sat up squinting and blinking. Two watched, amused, saying nothing.

  “Di’joo uhm … say something?” the vampire asked, still half asleep, and Two laughed at her.

  “Nothing important, hon. Good evening.”

  Naomi rubbed her eyes and yawned, then crawled over on hands and knees until she was behind Two. She kissed Two’s left shoulder blade and said, “Hi.”

  Two turned around and gave her a quick kiss on the lips, then stood and moved in front of the mirror, toweling her hair. She had kept it short, at Stephen’s insistence, and was coming to quite like the look. She had played with Naomi’s initial styling, finally deciding on something even more wild and chaotic. Stephen had said it suited her, and Two thought he was right.

  “Wish I could sleep like you do,” Two told Naomi, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed, stretching out her arms and back.

  “Why?”

  “Dude … it was a fucking oven in here!”

  “Mmm. Yes, we don’t feel it so much, one way or the other, icebox or oven. I … did you just call me ‘dude’?”

  “Maybe,” Two said. She unhooked her towel and let it drop to the floor. Behind her, Naomi made a noise of approval.

  “You are really tempting me now. That’s not fair,” the vampire said. “We have things we have to do tonight!”

  Two caught Naomi’s eyes in the mirror, grinned at her, wiggled her rump once, and then pulled a pair of panties from the drawer.

  “Tease,” Naomi said, heading for the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Have fun. I’m going to go make sure Stephen’s ready to go and not shouting at a friggin’ dart match on TV or something.”

  Naomi laughed and closed the bathroom door. Two stared at it for a moment, wondering why it couldn’t always be so easy and comfortable between them. After a moment longer she gave up on the question, and her attention returned to the nervous energy coiling in her belly.

  She wondered what this mystery vampire would be like. Eadwyn had told them nothing, neither her name nor her age, no distinguishing features, no information other than her sex. He had told them to go to the ruined mosque that stood on a nearby hill, looking down on the town, and that the vampire they were supposed to meet with would somehow know they were there and arrive on her own. Two supposed they had little choice but to believe him.

  She dressed casually but well, choosing light fabrics. Although the evening had brought some relief it was still quite warm outside, and Two didn’t want to meet this new vampire while dripping with sweat. She put on a pair of stone-colored cargo pants and a slim, white button-down shirt, striped with thin pink lines. To these she added a simple pair of gold hoop earrings and the gold necklace that she had worn on the night when she first met Theroen.

  When Two was satisfied with her appearance, she went across the hall and knocked on Stephen’s door. He opened it shirtless, wearing a pair of jeans, his hair pulled roughly back and tied behind his head.

  “You’re interrupting my pushups,” he told her, and he went back into the room, leaving the door open for Two.

  “Boo hoo,” Two said, following him in. “I already did mine.”

  Stephen had insisted that Two maintain what he called a maintenance schedule: a hundred and fifty situps, fifty pushups, and thirty minutes of running or other cardio each morning. Two usually did jumping jacks when the weather made running unappealing. She had also added some yoga to her exercises and Stephen hadn’t objected, noting that it would help keep her limber.

  Two enjoyed the calm that the yoga brought her, and she pursued it often in the evenings before the vampires awoke. It gave her time to relax and think, especially now that she was no longer focused on learning the movements. She had asked Stephen if the slow progression was similar to that of a martial art, and he had admitted it was.

  “How many?” she asked him as he continued with his pushups, and he spoke his count out loud for her for a few moments.

  “Two-twenty-one, two-twenty-two …”

  “What’s your daily total?”

  “Five hundred.”

  “Five hundred is your maintenance schedule? Jesus Christ!”

  Stephen glanced over, noting her incredulous expression and grinning.

  “Vampires are strong,” he said and continued his workout.

  “No kidding. Well, I just came over to make sure you’d be ready.”

  “Is Naomi out of the shower yet?” Stephen asked.
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  “No, at least not when I came over.”

  “Then I’ll be ready ahead of her. She takes forever with her makeup.”

  Two, who had observed this fact for herself, smiled and nodded.

  “Twenty minutes,” Stephen told her. “If you’ll leave me alone.”

  “You’ll come over to our room?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK. See you, Stephen.”

  Stephen grunted a response, not looking at her. Two rolled her eyes and headed for the door.

  * * *

  “This must have been beautiful, once,” Naomi commented, and from up ahead of them they heard Stephen laugh.

  “No doubt that was of great consolation to the people who were crushed to paste when it collapsed,” he said.

  Two and Naomi exchanged a glance of exasperated amusement. Hundreds of years ago, one of the mosque’s supports had given out and the eastern wall had tumbled in upon the worshippers gathered there. Dozens had died, many more had been injured. The building had been subsequently abandoned and left to slowly fall to pieces until there was nothing left of any great monetary or architectural value. They were making their way now through the broken stones and dust, surrounded on three sides by the ruins of the other walls.

  “What are we looking for?” Two asked.

  “Nothing really,” Stephen told her. He had stopped and hunched down to look at the faint carvings still visible on a fallen pillar. “We’re just killing time until our mystery vampire arrives.”

  Two came up beside him, Naomi just behind her, and stopped.

  “What if she doesn’t show up?” she asked.

  “She’ll be here,” Naomi said. “The blood is priceless. I’m quite sure she’s anxious to acquire it.”

  “I still think it’d be funny if she just opened it and tossed it back, like a college kid doing tequila shots,” Two said.

  “We don’t even know if it’s still liquid,” Naomi said. “If it’s elder blood, it might be thousands of years old. I still believe it’s a keepsake of some sort.”

  “It doesn’t really matter what she’s going to use it for,” Stephen said.

  “Suppose not,” Two replied. “We’re just here to drop it off.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Right, fine,” Two said, and paused for a moment before adding, “… but what if she doesn’t show up?”

  Stephen laughed, shook his head, didn’t answer. Naomi put a hand on her shoulder, and Two glanced over at the vampire girl.

  “You’re nervous,” said Naomi.

  Two nodded. “Not sure why. Felt this way since I got up.”

  “I’m sure that whoever we’re meeting will be pleasant,” Naomi said.

  “Yeah, no … it’s not that. I’m not scared, and it’s not like waiting for the council meetings or anything. It’s hard to describe.”

  “Can I do anything to help?”

  Two smiled at her. “Don’t think so, hon. It’s not actually a bad kind of nerves. I’ll survive.”

  Naomi seemed to consider this and was about to say something when the presence descended upon them, a sensation that Two would have found impossible to describe even if she’d been able to speak. Naomi and Stephen both seemed paralyzed, eyes wide in surprise and what might have been fear. Two thought for a moment that she might now understand how it would feel to stand on a beach and watch as a great and devastating tidal wave swept toward her.

  It was Naomi who found her voice first, squeaking out, “Oh … Stephen, what is it?”

  Stephen’s own voice was choked, and in it Two heard the same terror and awe that she could feel running through her own body. His complete inability to mask these things only unnerved her further.

  “We must go. Naomi, Two, we must … we must go.”

  So it seemed they should, and yet none could move. When the voice came from behind them, each heard it in their mind as well as with their ears. The words it spoke were simple.

  “Go?” it asked them, its tone amused. “Children, you’ve only just arrived.”

  Two felt herself turning slowly to greet this visitor whose presence now weighed down upon her like the depths of the sea. The movement was not precisely made against her will, but not by it, either. She saw from the corner of her eye that Naomi and Stephen were doing the same.

  The woman stood perhaps five-foot-five and was well-built, thin and muscular. Her skin was dark, the shade of milk chocolate, but made darker by the fact that every visible inch of it was covered in snaking blue-black tattoos. The vampire blinked, and Two noted with detached amazement that even the woman’s eyelids were tattooed. She was wearing a gauzy, multi-layered turquoise wrap and had sandals on her feet. Her hair was braided and pulled back in a high ponytail, decorated around the crown with a small ringlet of gemstones that caught the moonlight and sparkled like stars.

  She spoke again, and again her voice reverberated in their minds.

  “Hello, children of Eresh and Ay’Araf. Hello, daughter. It is good to see the three of you here tonight, together as companions.”

  Naomi was weeping openly now, though whether the tears reflected terror, or awe, or grief, Two could not say. Without words, Naomi went to her knees and bowed her head, her back still shaking with sobs. Stephen glanced over at Naomi, perplexed by her reaction, and then back at the tattooed vampire. A moment later, he was visibly shaken as a bolt of recognition ran through him. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head as well.

  Two did not yet know who this vampire was, but it seemed obvious that the woman was to be treated with reverence, and so she went to do what her friends had done. The vampire’s voice, still roaring inside of her head, stopped her before she could move.

  “There is no need for all of that, children. I am a simple woman, glad to be once again in the company of my own kind. I would spend this time here with you as an equal.”

  Stephen glanced up, head still bowed, and spoke in a hoarse voice. “I don’t believe that is possible, my Queen, but we will do our best to accommodate your wishes.”

  Naomi still could not raise her head, could not, in fact, seem to stop the sobs that were wracking her body. She covered her face with her hands, making whimpering noises, gasping for breath. The tattooed vampire smiled gently, stepped forward, put her hand on Naomi’s head.

  “Why do you weep, my daughter?” she asked, and after a few unsuccessful attempts, Naomi was able to answer the woman, voice muffled by her hands.

  “I believed you dead. I truly did. Oh, forgive me, Mother.”

  “I have forgiven many for far worse, my child. You have done me no harm.”

  Naomi fought with her tears, slowly winning the battle. At last she looked up at the other vampire, her cheeks still wet, with something between awe and love.

  “I know I should know who you are, uh … ma’am,” Two said. “But I’m afraid I haven’t had much time to learn yet.”

  The vampire turned to her and smiled. When she spoke this time, her voice came to Two’s ears, and no longer to her mind. It was the voice of a woman, nothing more, but as Two heard the name, she understood why her companions had reacted as they did.

  “My name is Ashayt, Two Ashley Majors,” the vampire told her. “I am the Girl from the Desert, last of the Ovras, author of the Second Doctrine, and I am very glad to meet you.”

  * * *

  “This is … most unexpected,” Stephen said.

  He was sitting on a collapsed pillar, still trying to regain his composure, seemingly unable to stop staring at Ashayt. Two couldn’t blame him; the vampire elder was magnetic, seeming to draw all attention to her while doing nothing more than sitting, serene and unspeaking, gazing out at the moonlit village below them.

  “Yes,” Ashayt said. “Eadwyn felt it best to keep my identity a secret. He worried that you would be afraid of me or simply refuse to believe him.”

  Stephen nodded. “I would have thought him a liar.”

  “And you, daughter?” Ashayt asked.

>   Naomi jerked and looked up at Ashayt. She had been staring at the ground.

  “I … I would have been offended,” she said, her brow creasing. “I would have been angry with him for teasing us with the name of a dead god.”

  “I am neither dead nor a god.”

  “I’m sorry,” Naomi said, looking down again.

  “You do not need my forgiveness. You must forgive yourself, my dear.”

  “For thinking you dead?”

  Ashayt favored Naomi with a gentle smile. “For many things.”

  “I will try, Mother.”

  Ashayt nodded, sighed, looked again down at the buildings below. “On nights like this, I am reminded of Egypt, the home I left behind so long ago.”

  “Couldn’t you go back?” Two asked, and Ashayt slowly shook her head.

  “Not there,” she said, an aching sadness in her voice. “Never there.”

  Two was going to ask for elaboration, but Stephen shot her a look that made her think better of it, and she closed her mouth. She wondered if she should feel patronized, like a child dismissed to the side while the adults talked, but Ashayt soon assuaged her of any such fear.

  “I would like to hear your story, Two,” the elder said. “I know some of it from Eadwyn but few of the details.”

  Two looked up, startled. She had not been prepared to tell her tale yet again.

  “Everything?” she asked.

  “If you would, yes. I know it is hard, and I know you are tired of telling it, but I must admit to harboring a great deal of curiosity.”

  Two took a deep breath. “OK,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s … parts of it are ugly.”

  “I have seen many ugly things in my life,” Ashayt assured her. Two nodded, then spoke.

  “I was addicted to heroin and selling my body for it when Theroen found me,” Two began, moving into the story with the smooth flow of an experienced teller. It still hurt, but she found it easier somehow to tell it to Ashayt than to any previous audience.

  The elder vampire let Two tell the story without interruption for question or comment. In places, Stephen and Naomi made small additions, once the tale had reached the point at which they had become players. Finally, Two finished it and sat back.