Sacrament

by Susan Squires

  Sarah was shocked at her outburst. She waited for Khalenberg to order her to leave or to advance upon her with glowing eyes. Instead, cultivating boredom with apparent difficulty, he said, "There are periodic liaisons, some more intense than others."

  So intense you sinned by sharing blood, Sarah thought. "You are bitter because it did not work between you and Villach," she observed, finding the strength to speak.

  "It never works," he rasped. His anguish was so palpable, Sarah was suddenly sure he had been the one to dispatch his once-lover. Khalenberg rose, as if to end the interview. "But all this is neither here nor there. You will never find Davinoff now." She could see he felt he had said too much already.

  Now was the time for her trump card. "I know he has gone to Mirso Monastery," she announced with seeming assurance. "And I intend to follow him."

  Khalenberg spun on his heel and glowered at her. "Foolish chit!" he exclaimed. "You have no idea what you do. What you want would only bring disaster."

  "Tell me why," Sarah pleaded. "Tell me why or kill me. For my mind is quite made up."

  Khalenberg glared at her. She lifted her chin and returned the vampire's stare. A silence stretched between them until his lips twisted in a grimace that might have been a smile. "Davinoff would not look favorably upon the easiest solution. As well you know."

  Sarah realized she had been holding her breath. Now he would try to frighten her with all the most chilling details of vampirism. His straight back and uncompromising gray eyes said that at least he would not lie. "Tell me why Magda murders people," she asked.

  Khalenberg laughed. "She likes the taste of the last drop. With the ebbing of life there comes a feeling of ultimate power. You draw strength for your Companion, then from your Companion. The life passes from a victim's body to yours. It is a very seductive feeling."

  "Very well. She is addicted to an experience that is immoral. Did the Companion make her that way, or was it always there in her?"

  "Whatever is there is magnified by the use of power."

  "Julien says sharing blood is forbidden. Who forbids it?" This she must know.

  "The Elders, those at the Source. They are Powers to be reckoned with, far beyond anything you have known in your small world."

  Sarah got her imagination under control with difficulty and stopped constructing nightmares. "How were you and Julien made if no one shared their blood?"

  "We got the Companion from our mothers."

  "Was it always so? Who were the first?" Khalenberg had a mother?

  "You have too many questions, Fraulein." Khalenberg frowned. "The Companion came from the Source, a fountain sprung from rock. The Elders built the monastery around it."

  "If the fountain contains the parasite," she mused, rising, "Why do you bother to share blood with those you make? Would it not be easier to drink the water from the fountain?"

  "Do not think of stealing immortality, young woman," Khalenberg warned. "If you take the Companion, you die unless you also have the blood of a vampire."

  "Why?" she asked. "And why do you survive it?"

  "You want to know more than is good for you." Khalenberg sighed, but he continued. "When the Companion enters the body, it wars with the blood there. Only a few of the First Ones to drink the water survived. They became immune, and our kind was born. We share that immunity, as well as the Companion itself, when we share the blood. The blood is the life." He said it as though it were a benediction. "In the soft modern world no one survives the Companion without infusions of a vampire's blood to follow. The death that ensues is really quite terrible."

  Sarah swallowed hard, and turned her thoughts back to the startling fact that Khalenberg had a mother. "It is hard to imagine a child vampire." She saw chubby cheeks stained with blood.

  "There are no more children now," he said stiffly.

  "None of your people had any more children?" she asked, stunned.

  "What need of children when you live forever? And who would condemn a child to this life? No, they stopped condemning children right after Davinoff and Beatrix Lisse," he grated. "At first we chose to prevent it. But as more of us joined the Old Ones and the pool of eligible mates contracted, it seemed it was no longer possible." His voice was matter-of-fact.

  "No renewal," she murmured. "No one from outside, no children. How empty."

  "And what if there were thousands made as we are?" Khalenberg barked. "If everyone had a Companion to satisfy, there would be no satisfying any of them. That is why there is only one of us allowed in a city. We must be discreet."

  She sighed. "Is there no way around the drinking of blood?"

  "Julien hoped to make the blood someday," Khalenberg sneered. "He was dreaming. The Old Ones meditate to cut down what they need. But there is no dispensation from our curse."

  She thought she would have to prod him, but he seemed to want to tell her more now.

  "Finding blood constantly becomes a strain. Some like their victims to struggle. Personally, I go to them at night. They think it is a fever dream of passion. No struggle at all. It is a passionate act, the taking of blood. There is a bond between the giver and the taker, however brief. Then we move on, looking for the next new face to satisfy the need. It dulls the senses, after a while, to their humanity. There is only the need, and the act of slaking it, the momentary passion." His eyes seemed to see through to her soul. "Does this frighten you?"

  "Yes," she said, in a voice she wished were more sure. "But I haven't changed my mind."

  He looked at her narrowly. "You know all this, yet you persist?"

  "I will be with him, at any cost," she whispered.

  A shadow of pain passed over his face. He stared at her for a long moment. "I think you believe what you say, at any rate." he said shortly. Then after a moment, "You are not what I imagined you would be. It is perhaps lucky Davinoff is out of your reach."

  "I will find him, Herr Khalenberg. I expect that Mirso Monastery is somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains. You may save me time if you tell me where, but with you or without you, I will find him." She let her resolve seep through her and overcome her dread of his anger.

  "Do you know, young woman, why he has gone to Mirso Monastery?" Khalenberg stared down at her under his fierce brows.

  "He wants to take the redheaded woman there."

  "A side benefit only. He wants to take the Vow and lock himself away from the world. He is lost to you now. Once he takes the Vow, he can never set foot outside the gates again."

  Sarah suppressed her shock. "Surely he can renounce his oath!"

  "You do not know the Old Ones. The Vow is permanent. You will only torment him if you find him. He cannot return your regard from inside a monastic cell."

  "Why did you not tell me?" she cried, her fear of the man forgotten. "He is only hours ahead of me. Save me time, Herr Khalenberg. Tell me where I may find Mirso Monastery!"

  "Have you not heard all I have been telling you?" Khalenberg asked, his patience evaporated. "It is forbidden to give you the Companion. You have said yourself it would be onerous to you. In any case, when you arrive it will be too late and your presence can only cause him pain. Can you not leave well enough alone?"

  He was right, of course. What could she say? But she mustn't give in to dumb submission as she had in the coach with Julien. She looked up at Khalenberg, depending upon intuition now for guidance. "You saw me today hoping to find I was a despicable creature," she said slowly. "You tried to frighten me so I would give up my search, though you say Julien is beyond my reach. Do you wish to tell me why, Herr Khalenberg, or shall I guess?"

  "I want you to go home willingly to your backwater in Bath." Khalenberg let his gaze play fiercely over her face. "I want to give you a dose of reality."

  "You want proof there are no choices, Herr Khalenberg," Sarah corrected, wondering at her burst of courage. "You want confirmation that I am either a self-serving power seeker or a frightened child. You want Julien to be wrong about love, and you to be ri
ght."

  "What do you know of the feelings of our kind?" Khalenberg almost wailed. "You should leave this house, Fraulein, before I tire of your impudence."

  Sarah did not mistake this final sally for strength. "You have loved, Herr Khalenberg," she said on impulse. He turned to the window. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the brocade of the draperies. "I know it did not end well. But some piece of your heart still yearns to find love. You sacrificed all rules, all doubts once on the chance of happiness. I know it. And some part of you you would deny, would do it all again." She took a breath. "Well, I am at that point, Herr Khalenberg. I know all is ranged against us. To protect me, he has thrown away both our futures. But it is too late for protection. I have already risked my entire life's happiness. My only chance of winning back is to face all the other obstacles." She sighed. "I am neither an adventuress nor a frightened child. Do not deny the possibility of love, for us, or for yourself. Tell me," she pleaded, and let her heart flutter upon her sleeve. It was the only argument that remained. "I may yet intercept him."

  She watched his silent back until it sagged out of its accustomed stiffness.

  "Outside the village of Tirgu Korva, between Sibiu and Horazu." The harsh, clipped words, torn from his throat, were music to her. "Take the Danube as far as the Iron Gate."

  She wanted to cry. The first test was passed. But Julien was just the kind of man who would let a monastic vow stand in the way of love. "You won't regret this, Herr Khalenberg," she said, as she let herself out of the double doors.

  "We will all regret this," drifted from the form leaning against the window.

  Chapter Twenty

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  Sarah was amazed to arrive alive at a little inn that evening. The long boat ride up the Danube had ended in Moldova Veche, where she had managed, with her Romanian phrase book, to engage two brothers, young Stefan, who spoke a little Latin, and his fearsome brother Mihai, to take her as far as Horazu. Her coin had bought her passage, but did it not also proclaim that she was worth robbing? She had dressed as a peasant boy, hoping that would insulate her from the danger of traveling alone. Still, as their cart wound its way past the frothing narrows of the Iron Gate she expected the brothers to stop and do their worst at every turn. The gruesome Mihai, of scarred face and stoic mien, had not said a word and Stefan found Latin laborious so their journey was silent as they made their way into a forest reminiscent of wolves dressed like your grandmother and witches who killed children. She had cradled the little pistol she had bought in Vienna in the pocket of her coat, and tried to remember Mihai's gruff promise to deliver her to Horazu. But all she could recall was his appraising look. Her nerves frayed raw.

  That night at the inn Sarah went down to supper with mixed feelings. A spotted mirror told her that her disguise was still in place, but still she felt transparent. Only a gold coin had stilled the landlady's questions. She wore her coat over her shirt and vest to be certain her breasts would not reveal her and smoothed her hair up into her round cap. She had to go down to dinner. If Julien had passed this way, she might get word of him. She prompted Stefan to ask the other guests about her quarry and sat at the common table between the two brothers.

  There were perhaps eight other guests at the inn. Sarah could feel their eyes upon her. She tried to concentrate on the sorrel soup served with a dollop of soured cream, the calf's brains with rosemary and mushrooms, and a meat and vegetable dish called kachen, all washed down with stout ale. She kept her head down and her cap on. But soon the party grew raucous. One of the men called her "boy" in a loud voice, his guffaws revealing rotted teeth. His tone said he knew the truth. Taunting tones around the table urged him to action. Sarah didn't know whether to run from the table and trust he wouldn't follow, or stand her ground.

  Then, next to her, the silent Mihai took out his long knife, curved just at the end. It gleamed along the edge where it had been sharpened. Mihai's eyes never left his plate as he skewered a piece of pork with his fork and sliced it with the great knife. Eyes around the table followed the knife back and forth until Mihai laid it down next to his plate. The man with the broken teeth sat down abruptly amid a smattering of nervous laughter.

  Sarah snatched a glance at Mihai's frightening countenance. It revealed no more than it had all day. In some ways, by his action, he had claimed her. But for what?

  Sarah stared at the backs of the two brothers as the cart jolted along the track the next morning. They lurched along the frozen ruts as the track rose through a steep gorge. The world she knew seemed far away now. Julien must be long before her, but she had no trace, no word of him. Perhaps he was already lost to her. She was suspended between the life she had known and the unknown ahead, able to reach neither.

  As the cart came round a blind curve, Sarah was startled into awareness. The huge lout with the blackened teeth from the inn last night blocked their way. He stood in the snowy road brandishing an old fowling piece that had seen better days. The grin that revealed his chipped and rotting teeth was not a smile of welcome.

  "Stop," he yelled in Romanian. Sarah understood only that he was threatening, but she could guess what he wanted. The cart lurched to a stop. She fingered the heavy little gun in her right pocket for comfort and glanced at her companions. Mihai seemed hardly to register their situation except by a certain narrowing of his eyes. Young Stefan, however, was shocked. The man with the blackened teeth strode up to the wagon. Mihai peered into the thick forest on the right and down the steep slope of the gorge to the left. There was no escape for the cart.

  Mihai jumped down and came to the back of the cart. He held up a callused hand and motioned her to get down. She shook her head violently. They were going to give her to this villain, just like that! Was she worth so little to them, even for the value of her purse? She glanced back at Stefan, but he seemed frozen. Mihai motioned once again and grunted. Well, she wouldn't go without a fight, she thought furiously. Then her brain cleared. But not with Mihai. That would do no good. She only had two bullets in the double chamber of the little gun before she would have to reload. No, she would wait until Mihai and Stefan left them and she was alone with the other man. She willed herself to be capable of shooting someone. Even if she killed him, she would be alone in the middle of a snowy forest, easy prey to the next villain she met.

  Shaking, she jumped to the snowy, rutted road, disdaining Mihai's proffered hand. Glaring at Mihai, she turned to face the robber. Mihai took her arm, in spite of her efforts to shake him off, and marched her toward the grinning man, who still waived his ancient gun. When they were about three feet away, he let her go and pushed her toward the robber. The man reached out and grabbed her right arm as she stumbled in the snow. She could feel the rancid breath of his rotting teeth as he drew her close.

  All thought of waiting vanished when she felt him grip her arm and smelled his body. From that moment, she could not plan. She could not think. She just rebelled. Frenzied, she struggled to break his grasp. He grunted in surprise and tried to draw her close, but she kicked out to keep him at bay. He held her right arm. She could not get her gun. Her panic almost engulfed her. She tried to reach around with her left hand, but the pocket faced the wrong way. They turned and slipped in the snow like awkward dancers. Sarah shrieked and growled, all reason gone. She had only the urge to freedom and the need to get her gun. She lurched to her knees in the wet snow. The robber raised his own gun to bring the butt down upon her head. She watched it descend in slow motion. This would be the end of her small insurrection.

  She jerked to one side. It would not be enough. Her fingers fumbled their way to her gun at last. She raised it, left-handed, to her attacker's midsection. The blow reached her, but the power had gone. His face above her slackened. The butt of the gun glanced off her shoulder. Her grunt of pain sounded distant. She almost collapsed to the snow in his loosening grip. She watched her finger pull the trigger. An explosion erased all other sound. Her body jerked back as the tiny gun slammed against her.
Her persecutor slumped slowly to his knees, to reveal Mihai, standing impassively behind him. Blood ran out between the robber's broken teeth as she stared into his glazing eyes not six inches from her face. To her horror, he slowly sagged against her. She made a small sound of terror and wriggled away. The bone handle of Mihai's wondrous knife stood at attention in the robber's back.

  Without a word, without even looking at her, Mihai grabbed the handle of his knife and pulled it out of the man's back. The gleaming silver now was streaked in red. It dripped into the trampled snow, leaving pink dots about, like a sprig muslin dress Corina once had. Mihai rolled the man onto his back with one toe, then bent to wipe his knife on the rough fabric of the man's coat. His fingers strayed to a small black hole with the torn edges. He raised his eyes to Sarah.

  Sarah slowly put her hand to her mouth. Her stomach rebelled at what she had done, at what Mihai had done. She clutched the pistol to her breast for comfort and leaned over, gasping for air. From a distance, she heard someone calling out "Doamna, doamna," over and over again, the Romanian word for addressing a married woman. Then Stefan was by her side. He said something in Latin. She couldn't understand him. Leave. He wanted to leave this place. He tried gently to take her gun from her, but she shook her head and clutched it tightly as he lifted her up.

  She could not take her eyes from the body as Mihai dragged it to the side of the road. She had killed someone, someone who had been alive just a moment ago.

  By the time they got her back in the cart she was crying. No sobs, just tears. "You were brave," Stefan said in Latin. Mihai wrapped a blanket around her, gun and all. Stefan handed her her hat. She realized her hair cascaded down her shoulders. Her secret was gone, if secret it had ever been. Then the cart was jolting over the rutted, snowy road as fast as it could go.

  They made good time that day, in spite of the narrow mountain roads, as they raced away from that place of death. Sarah came to herself slowly. The strange lassitude receded and was replaced by a throbbing in her shoulder. She could hardly lift her arms to wind her hair back into her hat. She put her gun back in her pocket. Mihai still clucked to the horse without turning round. Stefan looked anxiously at her from time to time.