Darkness, I

by Tanith Lee

  ‘But I do need to know—one thing. Is he—is he the way he was?’

  ‘How was he?’

  ‘His power,’ she said, ‘his difference. Is he older—younger—changed—’

  ‘He changes the way land-masses move,’ Malach said. ‘Imperceptible but finite. He looked very young. He feeds on everyone and everything. Nothing sickens him. No rules. No obstacles. And he must have wanted her always. We believed he’d forgotten. But none of us does that.’

  Althene said, ‘Was there no moment when you could—’

  ‘When I could have killed him. Yes. Several. But he sucked the heart out of me.’ Malach leaned back. Inside its age, his face was very young, torn open, and the eyes like deserts of pale light. ‘He drained me. But, vampires. What else?’

  ‘You’ll heal,’ she said. ‘We do.’

  ‘Do we? Then that must be because we want to.’

  Somewhere, down in the serenity of the hotel, there was a little sound of something.

  Althene said, ‘Rachaela may come back. Will you—’

  ‘No. I don’t want to look at Rachaela. Tell her what you like.’

  ‘The truth,’ Althene said. ‘It will take some hours, I think.’

  ‘Only such a little time?’

  He stood up. Althene stood. They regarded each other over the blades of sunlight and the undrunk tea.

  ‘You helped me once very much,’ she said. ‘I wish that I could return the favour.’

  ‘But you can’t. One life is enough for any of us to manage. And our lives, of course, are so long.’

  When he had left her she took up one of the little cakes and crumbled it gently. She did not know why. Something delicate and sweet, something wasted.

  Jutka, the old woman who served the castle of crows, had told him about the fox, the vixen. He did not often meet Jutka. But he had found her in the bedchamber, the woman’s room, sweeping the floor in a slow attending way. She made no apology. She stood before the curtained bed and looked at the painted cradle.

  She told him a white vixen had been coming into her garden.

  He said it must be a dog. There were no foxes, here.

  She did not argue. Jutka never argued.

  ‘I leave out a cooked chicken for her,’ said Jutka.

  Perhaps the vixen had escaped from some private collection of animals. Or possibly Jutka had dreamed it all.

  The dogs had been pleased at first, galloping about the castle after him, Firs and Kraai the silliest, bounding on to and off furniture, their claws skittering on the flagstones.

  His mood infected them gradually. He was sorry to see it. They ran through the maze of the overgrown garden, which represented eternity, barking, trying to intrigue him. They bit at the fires of tulips, remnants of the mania of the 1600s, then scowled because he did not shout. Their tails drooped.

  Enki and Oscar bore with him best, refusing quite to give in, nuzzling his hands.

  He could not foresee a day when it would be otherwise.

  The story of the white fox angered him.

  It was Ruth, evidently, the symbol of Ruth and Anna joined. Some projection of his own unconscious, or some ghost of her living ka far off in Cain’s white tomb.

  He drank through the afternoon, beer, Jenever, brandy, in the bar with copper pots and homed skulls.

  No one remarked him, but for the elderly man he always bought a few drinks.

  Later, the hyacinth colour of dusk came down, the neons woke and the street-lamps and the loops of bulbs above the canals.

  He waited even then, watching the drunks pass through the bar, sober as the death’s head at the feast, with the second bottle of brandy standing hollow.

  It was two in the morning when he went to her, along the cranny of street. The man by the door knew him, but the tired sooty girl did not, and tried to call him back.

  Above the squinny of stair, he knocked. Then listened for her rasping. The city was very, uncharacteristically, still. At length, a dribble of a voice, not hers, bade him come in.

  She was seated at her table, amid the litter and clutter and stink of her room. The Jewess. No, his blood had not done her good, though she had been so intent to get it. She had grown fatter, into a vast wallow of flesh, and her hair was thinner and more brittle, burnt straw now. Only her dark eyes grinned at him, her purple mouth turned down.

  The other was a woman ancient and thin as a stick, with matchstick hands, in which she held, muzzle towards his chest, a .357 Magnum. Without a tremble. She cackled, too, liking what she did. From her lips protruded a smoking Lucky Strike, its blue thread rising like a tendril of her soul.

  ‘No need. Put it away,’ said the Jewess. ‘This is the wicked one. He is my friend, the shit-beast.’

  The second crone lowered the gun without effort. She plucked her cigarette and let out a gust of blue. This one is the one they call the Prince.’

  ‘Prince,’ said the Jewess, ‘Prince of Smokes.’

  ‘Tell her to go,’ Malach said.

  ‘Private, is it, Pretty? Not so pretty now. I won’t have your blood this time. Not worth it.’

  ‘No you won’t have my blood. I’ve brought you an armful of guilders.’

  The thin crone shuffled up. She left the Magnum lying on the table among the packs of cards, the greasy candles stuck into dented tin mugs. Moths clustered on a plate of crumbs, feeding, their wings fluttering, ignoring the candlelight.

  Near the table’s centre a dead rose, its head perfectly preserved and the colour of tobacco, stood in a cracked grey glass.

  ‘See,’ she said, ‘I keep mementoes of you.’

  ‘How unwise,’ he said.

  He sat at the table facing her, as the other one stick-cackled out of the door.

  The Jewess raised her head. In the white suet of her face, all folds and creases, the eyes moved independently of the rest of her. Her fat dark lips.

  ‘What do you want?’ she said.

  ‘Tell me about her,’ he said.

  ‘Let her go,’ said the Jewess.

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Through me, the only fashion he can come at her. Why didn’t you take her while you could? She would have fallen like a fruit into your mouth.’

  ‘Why,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps I only want the pain of loss. I’m used to it.’

  She glared into his dry cold eyes. ‘Don’t weep at my table,’ she said. ‘You’ll bring bad luck.’

  ‘You are bad luck, lady.’

  ‘Not so bad as yours.’

  Then she heaved herself together, pulling shamelessly inward with her hands, her breasts and thighs. She stared down into some space under the world.

  ‘Already,’ said the Jewess, ‘she is his. Already. And what do I see? There in her belly. His child.’

  Malach watched the witch.

  He blinked once, that was all.

  The Jewess coughed. Her breath was intolerably foul, but he did not flinch away. ‘Give me the money.’

  He put a brown packet on to the table, slitting it at one end as he did so. The coloured notes poured out, looking like some parody of her cards.

  ‘Then,’ she said, ‘I can tell you one last thing.’

  He waited.

  The Jewess said, ‘She is white as snow, but the child in her womb is black. Black as coal.’

  She lifted her head and added, to the silent entity of the room:

  ‘A new darkness.’