For more than an hour I sat next to his bed in the darkness, bathing his flesh, until finally the fever broke and his limbs calmed. Color filled his wan face again, as it had the marble cheeks of Joshu's corpus, and he breathed quietly in a sound sleep. Near dawn, while I sat lost in thought, his eyes opened and he turned his face toward me.
"Victor? Is that you?"
I leaned over and touched his cheek.
"Did I…was there an apparition? Where did you find me?"
"In the chapel. Raving like a lunatic. Do you remember what you saw?"
He shook his head and kissed my hand.
"What do the others think of your raptures?"
"No one knows. Not now. Luke did. He found me a couple of times, outside, near the woods. I told him it was epilepsy."
"Maybe it is."
"You know it's not. You know." He gazed at me admiringly.
"Victor…" He brushed my arm with his lips.
I crawled into the bed next to him and found his lips, heated now but not with fever. His kiss stirred my desire for him, the desire I'd struggled to restrain until his will moved, until now, when its motion surged like a flooded stream. I stripped off my clothes and into that stream cast my soul, taking him in my arms, kissing his neck, his chest, taking in my mouth his engorged cock as though I were a hungry infant at the breast.
When he moaned in pleasure, his chest rising and falling, not with the regularity I had seen in the weight room but with urgency and a quickening, erratic rhythm, with an abandonment of predictability and control, I entered him. The warm passage expanded without a hint of resistance, as though my full cock belonged there, wrapped in the warm, bloody membrane. I drilled into that blood, pumped seconds ago from the excited heart of my beloved. I felt the blood there, and smelled blood on his lips. I felt blood coursing through his every vein and artery, bearing in its red tide his very soul—to me, to me. I longed for the blood, longed to drink of that soul. My fangs, now extended to their full length, sought it, but as the spasms of consummation shook his sweaty body, I turned my head away. He must be my lover, not my victim.
VI
The Proposal
Chapter Twenty-two
« ^ »
On Christmas, fresh snow piled three inches on the branches and drifted against the stone walls on the east side of St. Thomas. Irrationally or not, I breathed more easily, thinking that by shrouding the ground, the snow would trap the ghost of Luke, who continued to haunt me. But it was no use. As dried as it now was, I could smell Luke's blood on the shirt I'd deposited in my tomb. Destroying it or burying it in the woods was out of the question now that federal agents were searching the area with renewed vigor. News reports only speculated as to why the agents had returned to the woods above the monastery, since the director would reveal nothing about the agency's motives. I knew it was because they needed Luke's body to link the crimes to St.
Thomas. Even someone without my keen perceptions would sense the sheriff had suspected me, and the drill I was subjected to by one of the agents only confirmed this impression.
"Now, Brother Victor," he said, sitting behind the abbot's desk with a pad and an expensive fountain pen. "How would you classify your relationship with Brother Luke?" His arrogant manner heightened his attractiveness. He had a boyish face but a stocky, well-built frame. His collar fit tight around his thick neck.
"I've been over this with the sheriff." I stared straight into his eyes, but he betrayed no intimidation.
"Formality, Brother. When we need to go over the same ground, we do. Right now, I need for you to answer me."
"We were friends." I crossed my legs and tried to keep myself calm. "He was young, looking for a mentor. I was the mentor."
"Just a mentor?"
"What are you asking?"
"Are you a homosexual, Brother?" His eyes remained leveled with mine. The agency had chosen well when they hired this cold, direct official.
"No."
"I've heard different."
"So? It's not true. I'm a monk. Celibate, Mr. Andrews. What kind of a monastery do you think we have here?"
He recapped his fountain pen. "That's the exact question we're working on, Brother. When we piece it together, you'll be the first to know."
I left him in the office when he'd finished his interrogation. Which of the monks had reported my unnatural liaison with Luke, I wondered. The pathetic abbot? One of the head-in-the-clouds scholars who'd for once noticed something outside his own esoteric world? It didn't matter. Even if I did covet my monastic refuge, I never sought to please my foolish companions.
No witch-hunts would be held within the sacred walls now anyway, no matter who in the monastery observed my movements. Creating a scandal in the world without could injure the reputation of the order, could result in the abbot's demotion. Perhaps the arrogant agent himself had surmised the truth. So be it. My time was coming.
A freak blizzard stopped the FBI's search for a whole day. That night, the wind howling in my ears, I sped through the air to the spot where I'd buried Luke's remains. A downed tree sank into the ravine where I'd dug a grave with one hand while I lifted the trunk with the other. Snow filled the entire ditch and camouflaged even the tree itself beneath a drift.
I'd no choice now. If the agents discovered Luke's remains, I'd have to flee, and flee without Michael. The time was close. Between us, close as the dawn, lay the pact, itself a dawn whose bright rays even I could bask in.
The icy flakes coated my brows, my hair by now. The cold stung my hands as I clawed beneath the tree, which I'd shifted with some difficulty, laden as it was with snow. Blinking in the storm, I kept an eye out for ambitious FBI interlopers while my hand groped for the remnants of my prey. I felt a shock of brittle hair, then pulled up Luke's skull, skinless now after all these months, and dropped it into the garbage bag I'd brought with me. His habit, his loose bones, his shoes came next, all embedded in the frozen earth, which seemed to tighten its grip the more I dug and pulled. But at last I had every scrap of him. I replaced the tree, scooped snow back into the ravine, and, pitting myself against the storm, flew back to the monastery.
Nightmares or not, the skeleton could be concealed in only one place: the mausoleum. The stream was frozen and would be dragged when it thawed—soon, given the usually mild Tennessee winters. Transporting the bones to another location, to a farm or beyond the city, involved the risk of being seen. Besides, I believed the key to conquering my nightmares was to face the ghost who haunted me. What had I to fear from a cluster of bones, I who had slept in the midst of bones for 2,000 years?
I trod quietly through the dark entryway with my treasure and stole down the stone stairs to the crypt. The mausoleum's gate whined as I opened it. I ducked into the tomb and jerked the lid from one of the vaults. On the neat skeleton of a monk, clad in the tatters of his habit, I dumped the new, jumbled bones and the habit and shoes of a youth who, if not for his idiocy, would still live.
When day arrived I slept like a baby.
Chapter Twenty-three
« ^ »
Twice more I witnessed Michael's strange seizures. The first time, he repeated his conference with the transformed marble corpus of Joshu, chanting the same hymn, muttering the same Latin injunction about an evil man. Again I carried him to his cell and we made passionate love. The second fit overcame him in the woods in early February, after the agents had given up their futile search for Luke's remains. The snow had long ago melted. In the prematurely balmy air we were hiking along the path through the woods when Michael launched into a sprint. At first I thought he was playing.
"Just try to get away!" I called after him.
Waiting until he had disappeared beyond a slope, I flew at the speed of my thoughts, arriving at a place where the path divided, part of it disappearing into the trees and winding around an abandoned shack. After standing against an oak for a good time, I called to him.
"Is this a challenge? All right then, I accept." I laugh
ed, believing he hid from me in the woods.
But as I tramped up the hill, a light caught my eye, fire blazing through the trees. I found him, a glimmering cloak draped around his naked shoulders, his eyes raised to a limb where an old woman rested. A turban like the headdresses worn by American slaves wrapped her small, dark head. A large, bold print splashed her robe with purple and green, visible to me despite the darkness.
"This is Jana, Victor." Michael threw his arm around me.
His eyes were glazed, as though he spoke in his sleep.
"Yes." I studied the shriveled hag.
"We meet at last, good Victor," she said. "The World of Darkness bids you greetings." She spoke with a heavy accent—Creole, I assumed. Her eyes were full of mischief.
"The Dark Kingdom? You reside there?"
"I reside nowhere. I flit about in the darkness."
"What kind of apparition are you?" I asked, doubtful.
"One conjured by this one." She glanced at Michael, who continued looking on in a daze.
"Ah, only a shadow then," I said.
"A projection of the shadow within Michael's own soul. He would know evil."
"For what purpose?"
"To reckon with it, to understand its power."
I laughed. "Understand it? Vanish, hag, there's nothing you can teach."
Her eyes returned to Michael. "Witness the power of evil, boy."
She faded to a transparent image and then vanished altogether.
Michael collapsed. The cloak had disappeared along with the apparition, leaving him naked. His body could have been a corpse, it was so cold. I dressed him and lay with him near the fallen tree until he opened his eyes and inhaled deeply the balmy air, spiced with the clean scent of firs.
"It's very dark, Victor."
"Yes." I stroked his hair. "I've learned to love the night. With my illness, I have no choice. Do you remember your apparition?"
He shook his head. "Something sad. That's all I know."
After he regained his sense of orientation, we relaxed together against the fallen tree, and I asked him about his mystical experiences.
He stared thoughtfully toward the stars. "I'm not sure what to say. I've had them ever since I can remember. I know when they come. I wake up naked and confused. Sometimes I remember the content exactly. Sometimes it's just a feeling of doom or lightness, depending."
"What about this time?" I said, grasping his hand. "What did you feel?"
He shrugged. "Fear."
"Of what?"
"I don't know. Who can make sense of dreams?"
"But you take these spells to heart." I paused. "Do you fear me?"
"You asked me that before. In the weight room. Should I fear you, Victor?"
"No, I would never harm you. In fact, what I want…"
I turned my head to consider whether the moment was ripe for opening the door, at least an inch. "What I want is to give you something."
"What?" His dark eyes gazed at me intensely.
I released his hand and got up. I paced for a few moments with my hands behind my back and then I faced him. He had drawn up his legs to hug his knees.
"I want you to think of an image."
"An image?"
"Anything, a broom, a car, anything. Only focus on it as though you were projecting it on a screen in your mind. Go ahead."
Michael closed his eyes. Within seconds of concentrating on his thoughts, the image of a skull reproduced itself in my mind.
"Why a skull?" I demanded.
"You see it?" Michael opened his eyes in surprise.
"No." I sat down next to him. "Close your eyes again. Imagine the skull. That's right. Now watch." I once again directed my will to Michael's mind, where blood now streamed from the skull's eyes. "See the blood?"
"Yes."
"Keep focused on it. Move toward it. Do you feel it?"
His breathing grew more rapid. "Yes," he said, excitedly.
"Feel it. Feel the power, the strength. Feel the lust, the hunger."
"Yes."
I shook him at the height of his pleasure and he opened his eyes, still panting.
"I want to give you this passion as often as you want."
The pleasure vanished from his face and he glared at me in indignation. "How is it yours to give, Victor?"
"I can't tell you now."
"You can't tell me?" He jerked his hand away from me and stood. "You ask me about intimate visions, but you can't tell me how you get inside my head?"
I climbed to my feet and faced him. "Don't push me. Strong chains are forged slowly. Like the bond between us."
"You think I withhold secrets from you?"
"You've no reason to." I grabbed his arm when he shook his head in exasperation and started to walk away. "Wait, please. I have a long past, Michael. You've got to let me unfold it slowly. You've got to trust me. You're the one who believes in waiting, remember?"
He gazed steadily into my eyes as though he were trying to read my thoughts. Then he relaxed in resignation. "All right, Victor. I'll leave it to you."
He remained true to his word, his discipline taking over when his pride reared its head, no small feat since his ego matched my own. It was my own impatience that worried me. I burned for our consummation; had I followed my impulses, I would have revealed everything in an instant, but at the risk of taxing even Michael's courage to hear the truth. A gradual disclosure alone would ensure our future.
One night in the library's reading room, as we pored over so-called "apocryphal" volumes on the life of Joshu, Michael went to retrieve another book from the stacks. When he arrived at the fifth level, reached only by the flights of narrow stairs he'd climbed, I was waiting for him there, having willed myself to the spot. His gaze absorbed the significance of the accomplishment, but without a word he walked to the shelves for his book.
At other times I heaved a fallen tree from the forest path or crushed a stone into powder. In the refectory one night, I caught his eye during the reading and made a sign for him to watch while my eyes seared into the mind of fat Brother Athanasius as he read from the Lives of the Saints. Suddenly confused, Athanasius stopped and returned to the beginning of the passage. After he stopped and started twice more at my prompting, the abbot motioned for him to take a seat.
Michael registered my powers with gravity, but stayed true to his promise, demanding no explanation.
One night during Lent I decided to broach the subject of the Kingdom of Darkness. Michael had spent the day spreading mulch around trees on the property and we inspected the hedges near the buildings to determine how much more was needed. When we returned to my cell, he sprawled out on the bed, exhausted. I straddled the desk chair, facing him. The tired lines around his eyes showed up even in the soft lamplight. We chatted awhile about trivial matters, and after a long pause in the conversation I spoke.
"What do you think heaven is like?"
"It's 3 in the morning, Victor. I'm not in the mood for a catechism lesson."
"This isn't catechism."
The seriousness of my tone got his attention. He rolled over and propped his head on his hand. "Go on."
"I think people are goaded toward it by some strange lofty ideas. Blessed union with the creator. Eternal blessedness. What is that?"
"What happens in eternity is anybody's guess."
"Guessing's not the problem. It's spelled out by Scriptures. The Book of Revelation paints a nice picture—the masses kneeling at the throne of God, singing, praising. For eternity. Frozen forever on their knees. Sounds like hell to me."
"What about Dante? Paradise is contemplating God, according to him."
"Contemplation be damned. We're made for action, life, movement, pleasure." I pounded the back of the chair with my fist.
"From the way Dante describes hell, I don't think we'll find much pleasure there." He yawned.
"What if there were another option, Michael?" I got up and sat next to him on the bed, my elbows on my knees. "W
hat if you could spend eternity laughing, making love, feasting, living like a god yourself?"
He roiled onto his back and clasped his hands behind his head. "That's what Lucifer was after, if I remember the story."
I shook my head. "Lucifer wanted to rule the same damned heaven. He lost the war, that's all."
"What are you saying? A third realm exists? We've all been brainwashed into being good so we can go to heaven?"
"It's true. The Dark Kingdom is a place for the elect, bold souls. A realm of gods." I paused. "It's the source of my powers. I can give you a glimpse of it."
The adrenaline pumped through him now. His eyes were keen, every nerve of his body ready to receive. But I had said enough for the time being.
"Stay patient," I said. "I'll show you everything soon." I kissed him good night and asked him to leave, despite his curiosity.
How did I know I could enter the Kingdom of Darkness? It was like an animal's instinct to mate, latent until the right moment, when it flared into the single impulse of its existence. My movements in the night, despite centuries of my own ignorance, had not been directionless, I now sensed. My mating dance had begun—the time to carry my prospective consort across the boundary of darkness for a taste of what awaited him once he served his term as a nocturnal predator.
After he left I rushed so rapidly through the night that my cheeks stung and my ears rang when I lighted on a dark Knoxville street to feed. Ravenous, I forced myself to move with caution since the police still patrolled the streets. Sweet, rich blood hung in the March air, so much that for a moment I felt disoriented, as though pulled in a hundred directions. "Focus, focus," I urged myself, and when I obeyed my own command the route to take traced itself in my mind, as vivid and red as the blood I sought.
A porch wrapped around a modest frame house, meticulously painted and adorned with shutters and lacy trim along the gable. I scanned the rest of the houses in the quiet cul-de-sac. Every window was dark. Still, to play it safe, I walked around back and through the gate of a picket fence. A decal on the back door announced "Proud to Be a Vietnam Vet" over an unfurled American flag. I pulled the knob of the locked door slowly and as quietly as possible until the bolt tore through the door frame.
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