Through the Moon Gate and Other Tales of Vampirism

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  “My god wouldn’t accept the sacrifice of my life because after the ritual, I didn’t stay dead. The Creator had denied my city the sacrifice needed to survive the war. But He gave me the powers I needed to survive my god’s curse. He said I must witness the working out of His blessing on the one who would accept it. So far all I’ve seen is periodic slaughter of the descendants of Abram. I’m still devoted to the god of my fathers, so I have problems with holy things dedicated to the Creator. The Devil has absolutely nothing to do with it.”

  Silver’s bushy black eyebrows rose to disappear under his cowlick. “You’ve spoken...with...God?”

  It was the tone one typically used with a suspected nut case. “Maybe not,” assured Malory. “Maybe that’s how I remember it, because someone tampered with my mind. It never happened again. I’ve been on my own for millennia, trying to fathom the laws of my existence. One thing I’m certain of—the best way for me to avoid personal disaster is to eliminate my daughter’s killer. And to keep the vow to my god.”

  Silver digested all that silently, then nodded. “I think I understand better now.” To Malory’s astonishment, he actually seemed relieved. “Well, you’d better get going if you’re going to confront del Rio tonight.”

  He watched as Malory took the turning step that twisted him through another dimension, leaving only a small bat form as his manifestation in the human reality stratum. For the first time in millennia, Malory was acutely conscious of a peaceful sort of pleasure in the shift, a sharp contrast to the effect of taking life’s blood or exposure to sunlight. There was a very great difference between the two gods.

  Still, the god of his fathers was not to be ignored.

  This night, del Rio was working out of a new, well-kept warehouse on the Embarcadero. Already the fog horns were blasting their warnings. It made fine cover for any noise.

  Malory folded his bat form under the eaves over a well lit office window and extended his senses. A freighter was tied up at the wharf nearby, reeking of cocaine. Neither police dogs nor mechanical sniffers seemed able to detect drugs the way a vampire could.

  Six men in the office were closing a deal over the delivery, del Rio and two guards facing three strangers.

  Malory listened for hours and learned nothing until the strangers left. Del Rio turned to a guard. “Get Dillon and Petrino back from Cancun. I’ve got a job for them.”

  “They might not come. You shouldn’t pay ‘em so well.”

  “I pay what a job’s worth. That’s why they’ll come.”

  The guard left mumbling that nothing could be worth that kind of money. Malory’s heart raced. Dillon and Petrino could be the ones who’d killed Rita.

  With growing impatience, Malory waited for del Rio to be left alone. It was close to midnight before things settled down and del Rio put his feet up on his desk, popping the top on a beer can. He seemed to be waiting for something, but Malory decided to risk it. He’d only need a few minutes.

  He launched himself into the air, twisted into a rope of fine mist, and glided through the hairline crack under the window. He took control of del Rio’s mind as he formulated himself before the desk. He could never have entered del Rio’s own home, but this was a public space, an office.

  Shocked, del Rio jerked once, trying to drive his hand toward the signal button under his desk. Then he subsided in the grip of Malory’s mind.

  He was a short, stocky man with a touch of distinguished frosting at his temples. His skin was dusky, his hair black. His nose had been broken in two places, and there was a v-shaped nick in the top of his right ear.

  Gripping his mind lightly, Malory studied the man, waiting for him to recover from shock. He’d never laid eyes on him before, but he knew him intimately. He was quick, sharp and ruthless. In the last three years, he’d ordered more deaths in the Bay Area than any other importer.

  At last, del Rio asked, “Who are you?”

  “The father of the vampire you had killed.”

  Malory watched del Rio’s mind grind through memories of terror as the mysterious deaths in his ranks spooked his finest operators. Then came the eyewitness account of a vampire leaving a warm corpse. That was himself, Malory realized. Del Rio’s men had threatened to defect en masse if del Rio didn’t stop the vampire.

  Del Rio had set a trap, sacrificing an untrustworthy messenger. Rita had fallen into the trap. While video cameras had failed to record Rita’s presence, her victim’s gyrations and death were recorded. Meanwhile, a sketch artist had caught Rita’s likeness perfectly.

  With del Rio’s connections, a portrait was all he needed to run down an individual as fast as the police could.

  So Rita had paid for all her victims as well as for Malory’s. If Malory had fallen into the trap, things might have gone differently. “I want the tape,” said Malory.

  Del Rio didn’t hedge. He knew exactly what tape, and, shaking, he produced it from a desk drawer. As he bent, Malory saw the edge of a case in the man’s impeccably tailored pocket. In a lightning swift move, Malory had it in his own hand. It was indeed a handheld like Silver’s but much larger.

  He took videotape and handheld, saluted courteously, and then, just as a man ushered another into the room, Malory ostentatiously turned into a bat, twisting the tape and diary through into the other dimension because a bat could never lift the weight in reality and flew to the window, where he turned to mist and sifted out the way he’d come.

  Before leaving, he paused to get a good impression of their reactions. Ghastly, white-face shock followed by sheer terror. Simultaneously, both del Rio and his guest realized that the organization’s most private and sensitive records were now in the vampire’s hands.

  At last, the guest declared, “You’ll bring me proof that you’ve retrieved or destroyed those records, or no one will ever deal with you again.” He stalked from the room, a picture of power and dignity despite the inner knowledge that he’d wet his pants.

  Del Rio remained sitting at his desk with similar knowledge, and he didn’t rise until the last of those he’d issued orders to had left.

  Malory departed certain that del Rio would soon put Rita’s killers, and most probably himself, into Malory’s trap.

  It was almost sunrise.

  While he and Silver were spraying stage cobwebs in the kitchen, Silver asked, “What if del Rio brings an army?”

  “He won’t. It could prove too...embarrassing if word got around that del Rio is crazy, possibly from using his own product. What else would anyone think who saw him pounding a stake through someone’s heart? Besides, word would certainly get out that his private records had been stolen. No, he’s got to retrieve that handheld secretly. He’ll use the only two hit men he has who’ve been successful against a vampire, and they’ll use that same successful technique.”

  “Unsuccessfully.” He led the way into the living room.

  Malory circled the casket. “Yes.” He laid a hand on the ebony surface. “Dave, this is your last chance to back out. I’m going to feast on those men. It will be ugly, and I may not be able to prevent you from observing it all.”

  He shook his head decisively. “I’ve thought through what you told me last evening. I’m in.”

  “You could be killed.”

  “Rita was killed. I’m in. You can’t deny my right.”

  “No. I can’t.” He eyed the graying fog. “Secure the house, then. I’ll sleep in the casket today. But I think it will take them more than one day to find me.”

  “Probably. But if you’d told them any more than that you were associated with Rita, they’d have figured it was a trap. Now they’ll have to work through reams of computer records and check out everyone she dealt with to find you. Shoot, they might end up at my house first!”

  Malory raised the casket lid carefully not using the trick handles. “The cost of damage to your property would easily be covered by the funds I’ve put in your name.”

  “That sounds awfully final.”

 
“I doubt my existence is threatened, but Malory Avnel must disappear after the confrontation, and this house will no doubt become useless to me.” At Silver’s stricken look, he assured, “It’s a small loss. I’ve others.” He closed the lid, settling down with only a thread of contact to Silver.

  Three days passed, four, five, and nothing. The strict fast tightened around Malory’s guts. He spent the days in restless vigilance, and the nights pacing, watching his clocks tick off the hours of his fast.

  On the sixth night, he was tempted to return to del Rio and give him a clue. Surely, the man wasn’t so incompetent.

  But Silver talked him out of it, speculating that the hit men might not have returned from Cancun so quickly, or that they were preparing weapons. “Be prepared for buckets of Holy Water, and dozens of consecrated crosses. They can buy priests down in South America. How about consecrated Host? What can we do to defend against anything like that?”

  “Let them believe I’m more helpless than I am. Unless they bring a priest to administer these weapons, the effect will be mild. After all, consider the sins on their souls.”

  “I didn’t know that made a difference.”

  “It does.” But it set him to thinking, and later that night, when Silver had gone to sleep, Malory performed a ritual he hadn’t thought about in millennia, consecrating the house itself to the service of his god, burying sacred symbols before the windows and doors, carving signs into the concrete. Now, the purest and most devout wielder of Jewish, Christian, or Moslem objects wouldn’t be a real threat.

  His efforts had an odd side-effect. For the next two nights, he didn’t feel moment by moment that he was about to break his vow. In the day, he rested better, less tormented.

  They came on the bright, sunny eighth morning.

  Malory knew it even before Silver alerted him by knocking on his mind. “Mal, there’s someone in the garden.”

  He fought his way to the edge of consciousness, the weight of day like lead on his chest. “It’s them, the two who exposed Rita. I recognize their, well, minds.” The psychic flavor, like the scent of a specific perfume worn by a specific person, was identical.

  He could feel Silver swallowing hard. “Right. Then where’s del Rio? You said he’d come personally.”

  “But taking the least risk. You mustn’t do anything until del Rio is inside the house with the other two.”

  “I know the plan.”

  To Malory’s consternation, he dozed off, waiting. Only Silver’s frantic mental nudging brought him awake. “They’re in the garage! Are they going to blow up the cars?”

  Now that was a possibility they hadn’t planned on. But Malory didn’t think that was it. Too chancy.

  There was another long wait and Malory faded in and out under the weight of daylight, Silver fretting ever more at how groggy the vampire was.

  And then Malory sensed it, just a whiff filtered through the mortal’s crude senses, but no mistaking the pungency. “Dave, it’s garlic. They’ve flooded the heating system with garlic. The heat’s on, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. It was cold when I got up.”

  “Well, turn it off!”

  If Malory had been alone, this would have been ineffective. He never used heat except to prevent mildew.

  Very quickly, the scent turned to a thick miasma, a cloying solidity in the air. Malory had to shut down his link to the mortal for his own distress was growing.

  Malory had seen to it that the casket wasn’t air tight, so he could emerge as mist through a tiny hole in the side.

  Now, he noticed the hole he’d made was on a line with the breeze from a heating vent. He shoved his elbow against the hole. In dormancy, he wasn’t breathing much, but still the scent was paralyzing. He fought to regain contact with Silver and found the human frantically trying to get his attention. “They’re on the roof!”

  Seeking the killers, Malory realized they were doing something to his chimney. He’d never used the fireplace that occupied one wall of the living room, but he did often use the chimney in mist or bat form.

  He had to look through Silver’s squinting, watery eyes at one of the living room monitors to see what came down that shaft, but he recognized it before Silver. “Censer! Bigger than they’d use in a cathedral. Looks like a custom job.”

  Smoke billowed from the incense burner, pouring out through the holes around the cross-shaped carvings in the sides. Even from inside the casket, Malory could feel the thing vibrating with the peculiar tone of The Creator. And the smoke! The incense had been specially blessed. Silver’s words echoed through his mind. They can buy priests.

  Though Malory’s consecrations of his window and door sills were not wholly effective, they cut the impact of the sacred smoke by half, and it had already been vitiated by the impiety of the wielders. But Malory was still weakened and distracted from the garlic and misery mounted fast.

  He’d never understood his antipathy to garlic, except that certain sacred herbs and woods did have massive effects on him. Right now, he wasn’t interested in understanding.

  “Dave, go up to the third floor.” There were three empty bedrooms up there. “On the wall by the thermostat, there’s a switch like a lightswitch, but it’s black with a plain black plate around it. It’s an attic fan. Turn it on.” It hadn’t been cleaned or oiled since before he’d moved in. Nobody needed such a thing in a house overlooking the Pacific. “Hurry, Dave, they’ll be up to something else soon.”

  The mortal was already on his way when Malory sensed a shift in the air-pressure. He had located the two invaders at the kitchen windows, overlooking the little enclosed garden. He deduced they’d just cut their way in through the window. They’d be climbing in over the sink now, probably using the ladder they’d taken from the garage. Obviously, they’d spent the last few days carefully casing the house.

  Just then, the attic fan thundered to life. With only the chimney, the stove hood, and now the kitchen window open, the powerful fan must be drawing gustily. Malory sensed the invaders’ surprise.

  As Silver raced back down the stairs, his steps covered by the vibration of the fan, Malory told him, “They’re in the kitchen. If they start a fire, cut that fan!”

  “It’s helping the garlic.”

  And the incense. But as the frightening effect of the smells abated, Malory found himself dozing again, too lethargic to care about the killers heading for the casket in which he lay.

  He was shocked out of it when a sound like a sluicing downpour engulfed him, and he abruptly felt cut off from the outside world, suffocating (though he was barely breathing).

  “Dave!”

  “They’re using something like fire extinguishers to spray something onto the coffin from way over by the doorway. They’re really afraid of you. Look through my eyes.”

  It felt like the mortal was a million miles away. “I can’t take your eyes. It’s Holy Water.” By the gallon, just as Dave had predicted.

  A thin, shivering thought invaded Malory’s mind. Could he trust Dave after telling him that he’d refused the offer of the God of Abraham? Had Silver made a deal with Rita’s killers? Or was he just better at thinking like a modern man than Malory was?

  “I’m going to flood the room in CO2 foam,” said Silver.

  “No!” commanded Malory. “They don’t know about you. Let them get close to the casket and try to open it.”

  But the two men circled the room and went out the arch toward the front door, pausing every so often to nail up a silver cross. The house vibrated with queer discomfort.

  In moments, the front door opened and del Rio himself, clad in what looked like a NASA isolation suit, entered carrying a doctor’s bag. Standing in the living room entry, he examined the stage setting, face set in a wooden mask. But Malory could hear the man’s heart skip and race.

  Malory couldn’t help but admire the mortal. His knuckles were white on the doctor’s bag, but his step was firm as he circled the casket, checked out the piano by striking mid
dle C, swiped at the cobweb festooning the candelabra, then yanked the black draperies away from the windows. Malory knew sunlight streamed into the room.

  Everywhere del Rio stepped, everywhere he touched, the power of the Holy Water diminished a bit. His confidence built until he swaggered up to the coffin and his weight triggered the slam of the steel roll shutters over the windows.

  Swallowing in a dry throat, del Rio ran his hand over the casket, admiring the quality. To Malory, it was as if del Rio’s sin-blackened touch ripped a strip out of the Holy Water seal plastered to his coffin. Immediately, all of Malory’s senses broke free.

  The vampire took his first free breath since the deluge and relaxed. “Dave, just sit tight.”

  “You’re back! The curtains are open! But the shutters are closed. Let me flood the place.”

  Malory swathed Silver’s mind in firm control, damping his panic. He watched through the monitors as del Rio set his bag on top of the casket, laid it open and extracted a thermal pot filled with clay or wax, soft enough to mold.

  It was quite a large pot. Having never seen such a thing before, Malory couldn’t imagine what it was. Then, through the tiny hole in the side of the casket, he caught the faintest whiff, beeswax, and suddenly he knew.

  Alarm thrilled along his nerves, followed by black terror that paralyzed his thinking.

  Dave, through the grip Malory had on his mind, was likewise frozen in shock. Not knowing why, he tried to reassure the vampire. “They’re going to make a waxworks duplicate of your features! I’ve seen it done in Paris.”

  Yet even as Silver spoke, del Rio slapped lumps of the wax over the latch where the coffin would open and then in three places on the crack, saying, “He might not be in here. Soon as this is done, we’ll search the rest of the place.” From his bag, he produced a large stick with a disk on one end. He drove the disk against a blob of wax. A seal.