I tried to make the right noises. I tried to tell her about all my own anxieties and feelings of inadequacy. For the first time in my life I felt a temptation to declare that I had anorexia nervosa, instead of just being thin, so that she'd remember that there was one problem in the world that she didn't have. She'd have liked it, I think, if I could have joined in with the long, miserable howl of anguish. That was what she was expecting of me.
I didn't do very well. I don't think I'd ever have done very well, but if she'd come to me four or five weeks earlier I'd at least have been able to make a reasonable confession of my own inadequacies. As things stood, it was too late for that. And as things stood, I knew that I was capable of doing far more than paying her in false coinage. I knew that I had the power to save her, the power to give her real joy and real strength. But I couldn't say so—not right away. I wasn't ready yet for further complications, when I still had Gil to deal with. So I tried, instead, to meet her expectations. I told her that I wasn't very clever really, and that I felt out of my depth too, and that I thought it was tremendously brave other to try to do the course while she had a little girl still in primary school, and that I was sure that in the fullness of time everything would be okay. I just didn't make a very good job of it.
She thanked me when she left, said I'd made her feel better, apologised for having inflicted herself upon me, and asked if she could come again some time.
I said that was okay, and good, and it was no trouble, and yes of course.
It was all meaningless. It was all babble, all hypocrisy, all ritual. I could see that perfectly clearly. Dr Gray and Maldureve, between them, had enabled me to see all of that, and more.
Later, after dinner, I started work on my essay. I went to the library and sat at a desk there until it closed at nine o'clock. It was very peaceful. Peace and quiet always descended like a dark cloak upon the library, once the bars in the Halls and the Union were open. I liked sitting beside one of the big plate-glass windows on the second floor, looking out into the darkness, from which I could see the tops of the nearby trees, and all the lights blazing in various labs in the science blocks. But I didn't look directly at the lights that evening, because I didn't want to spoil my mood by seeing the owls staring back at me. I concentrated on my work for as long as I could, and when I looked up and out of the window I looked into the darkest shadows.
It was still warm when I set out to walk back across the campus; in fact, it felt just as warm as it had by day. It was easy to imagine that the scent of tropical flowers was still floating on the air which had been carried up from the Canaries by the not-so-gentle wind. Nobody was about, though. Everyone seemed to be indoors, imprisoned by force of habit and cages of electric light.
As I crossed the bridge, I realised that I desperately wanted to see Maldureve. It wasn't a physical desperation; it was an authentic longing. I wanted him to drink my blood, one last time, while my change was not yet quite complete. I wanted that last occasion to be special—to be a glorious celebration of all that had been and all that was yet to come. I wanted it to be slow, so that I could savour it. I wanted to be able to etch it on my memory so deeply that it could never be erased by mere forgetfulness, so that I'd have it for ever, to treasure.
I stopped by the wood and looked into the trees, into the intricate web of multitudinous shadows. I waited for a few seconds, then I stepped off the path and moved into their dark and fond embrace. I felt sure that Maldureve was there, waiting—waiting for me to come to him. I felt sure that he was as enthusiastic as I was to make our last encounter a memorable one, to build an emotional link which would bind us together eternally, as long as we both should live, no matter where we might roam in search of fresh blood to sustain our miraculous existence.
The shadows caressed me gently. I wondered whether he might be hiding, teasing me just a little.
Then, without warning, a gloved hand clamped itself over my mouth.
The glove was made of coarse wool, and it was moist and dirty. I could taste something earthy as the fingers tried to block my mouth and stifle my voice. There was a sudden stink in my nostrils—not just the reek of the glove but the foulness of bad breath. It was quite horrible. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. It was as though the air had been knocked out of my lungs by the shock.
I felt another arm snake around me from behind, but this one didn't grab at me. The hand already had something in it, tightly gripped. I struggled, but the arm was strong, and the horrid smell was palpable.
'Shut up!’ said a whispering voice, close to my ear, urgent with the panicky force of its command, although I hadn't managed to utter a sound. ‘Keep quiet, or I'll cut you!'
I felt the tip of something sharp press against my neck, against the spot where Maldureve had so often kissed me, from which he drew my blood. I knew it was the inert steel blade of a knife, but it felt like a claw. It was like something living, viciously avid to slash, to hurt, to punish.
I closed my eyes, beset by horror, but it was no good. I could feel the eyes staring at me, accusing me, hating me. There's no escape from the owls, when they cease to hide in light and come out into the shadows—the warm, caressing shadows which feel so very safe, but aren't. The owls were there, and all they needed was a little light to make themselves seen and felt.
Silently, I screamed for Maldureve. The shadows were all around us: his shadows; his world. But he didn't come in answer to my plea. The shadows didn't move at all.
'Get down, you bitch!’ The words hissed and buzzed in my ear. ‘Get down, you filthy, fucking bitch.'
I hadn't forgotten what Maldureve had said—that he couldn't come to save me from the owls, if ever they should seize me—but I couldn't help it that I didn't believe him. I felt absolutely certain that he would come, as he had before, surging out of the shadows to save me. I thought I knew him better than he knew himself. I howled for him to come, in the silent recesses of my skull.
I got down, sinking so meekly that the man who held me thought he had me, thought that I was his, thought that he could do whatever he liked with me. He had a knife at my throat and he thought I'd given in, that I'd consented to be his victim.
He was wrong.
As soon as the grip of the wet, foul glove relaxed upon my mouth, I screamed out loud. I screamed with all my might. I screamed for help, and the three syllables of Maldureve's name split the darkness like great claws, tearing the shadows. I screamed, as a demon might have screamed, with rage and fury as well as terror and the fear of pain.
I felt the pain which the shadow felt. I felt the blade of the knife prick me, groping for my soul. But it only pricked me, and my soul was far beyond its reach. It was a lighter touch by far than Maldureve's, and although it was all pain, all tearing, I knew that it was really nothing and less than nothing. I knew that mine was no ordinary flesh, that it could flow and mend itself, that it couldn't be destroyed.
It would have been all right, if the bite of the steel blade hadn't somehow filled my eyes with kinaesthetic light. It would have been all right, If I'd been able to fade into the shadows. But I saw the terrible eyes of the owls, and I knew that the blade was really a claw, and that the owls had come to claim me.
I would have laughed, but I was too busy screaming and fighting back. I grappled at the owl with my slender arms, and when that foul furry talon came back to try to clamp my mouth shut, I bit down on it as hard as I possibly could.
Even through the woollen glove, with its stinking burden of moisture and dirt, I could taste the blood. It wasn't sweet—not in that coarse bed of soiled and matted fibres—but it was good enough. With my own fingers splayed like claws on a talon I groped for his eyes, for those horrible staring eyes that I couldn't see. I wanted to tear the tearer, terrorize the terror ... to spill blood, in whatever quantity I could. I wanted to hurt the thing that was hurting me, to show the monster that I was a monster too, a haunter of the dark, full of supernatural strength and vampiric power.
The
n, all of a sudden, he was gone, fluttering away through the darkness, with his great wings battering the leafless branches as he fled. He was gone, and I had won.
I knew that I hadn't hurt him—not really. I hadn't drawn nearly as much blood from him as he'd drawn from me; that became obvious when I put my hands to my neck and felt the wound that the knife had made. Touching it increased the pain a hundredfold, but I didn't even flinch.
I could hear other people crashing through the wood by then, and I knew that they weren't owls or freaks or predators drawn as though by some mysterious magnet to the Marquis of Membury's Garden. I knew they were coming in answer to my scream.
Maldureve hadn't come—Maldureve had told me the simple truth when he said that he couldn't come to my aid against the owls—but I still hoped that he would come, in his own time, so that he might soothe my wound with his gentle lips, and so that we could make our special kind of love for one last time: slowly, lovingly, languidly, carefully.
I still hoped, even then.
I knew that I was losing blood and losing consciousness, but I still hoped that I was going to be all right. I tried with all my might not to be scared. I told myself, as sternly as I could, that I wasn't frightened at all. I told myself that Maldureve had taught me not to be frightened—of the dark, of demons, of rape, of dying, of my own hunger.
I knew that I was losing blood, but I hoped as fervently as I could that it wouldn't matter. I thought, in my innocence, that hope might be enough to save my life. I didn't want to die, and I really thought that if I hoped with all my heart that I might live, then I would live, and never die.
I put my fingers to the gaping wound in my neck, but the nails felt like claws, eager to rip and rend. I only wanted to stop the cut, but the blazing touch of my own claws filled my head with white light, and in the heart of that light I saw the owls.
There were thousands of them, perhaps millions. Their eyes were vivid and fiery, and their feathers were like coloured flames. They filled me up, and they caught my soul, and bore it aloft into their realm of frightful light.
They took me, and caged me, and left me to wait—all alone—for the purifying fires of Hell to ignite inside my heart.
Secondary Phase:
Fever
1
I guess there are times in everybody's life when everything that previously seemed stable, settled and dependable suddenly becomes unstable, unsettled and unreliable. It's not such a big deal when something like that happens; you have to expect it once in a while. It's freaky, but it isn't so out of this world that it's unthinkable. Maybe it's happened to you some time. Maybe you can remember a day when the world changed gear, when you looked in a mirror and thought, ‘Who am I, anyhow? What am I?’ and found that you didn't exactly know.
We take ourselves so much for granted that we sometimes don't know how much we've changed since we last took stock. It's easier than you think to find, all of a sudden, that you've become a stranger to yourself. You don't have to be in a foreign land, cut off from your folks and your old friends and the California sun, though all that sure as hell helps. It could happen any time: today; tomorrow; next Friday night. It could happen without warning. You could just wake up and it could hit you, like a punch in the gut, that you aren't any longer the person you thought you were, and that when you get right down to it you just don't know who the hell you've become.
Sometimes, when I was alone, I used to say to myself, as if I were introducing myself to some stranger. ‘I'm Gil Molari.’ I used to do that quite a lot, as if I were trying it out for size—not the name, but the tone. I wasn't just saying it as a matter of information, I was saying it to make an impression. I was saying it so as to imply self-confidence and pride. I was saying something about the kind of Gil Molari I wanted to be: an all-right guy; a guy whose name meant something; a guy another guy might have heard of, and might be proud to become acquainted with. I always wanted to be somebody, to achieve something that would command respect. I knew I was smart enough, and I had the motivation. I knew I could make a name for myself, if only I could find the right arena, some up-and-coming field where there were names and reputations to be made.
But you can be wrong about who you are. Not about the name, but about what it means. You can be wrong about who and what you are, and not realize it for a long time, until it suddenly hits you that you've become someone and something different. Self-confidence can be misplaced, and pride—as the Bible says—can go before ... well, anyway, you can be wrong.
I really was smart, though. I had lots of ideas, maybe more than I could handle. They'd hit me all the time while I was in the labs, during the boring intervals that all experiments have: the waiting times. Those were the best times for daydreaming, for wondering. I didn't have the same kind of daydreams and wonderings Teresa had ... well, sometimes, maybe ... but I had a whole lot of smarter dreams. I jotted them down in the margins of my lab book, the way great scientists are supposed to do, so that later—when I was somebody—that book would be a monument to the evolution of my genius. They were only daydreams; I didn't have any delusions of grandeur. We all have daydreams, don't we? And who among us settles for ordinary achievements, in the arena of our daydreams? Why should we? In our daydreams, we can be anything we want to be, and it doesn't do us any harm at all. It helps us, in fact, to keep the self-confidence and the pride in our voices when we say. ‘I'm ... whoever.'
Whoever.
And on those occasions when we surprise ourselves, when we suddenly discover that we're not the person we thought we were, we still have our daydreams to use as building blocks to reconstruct ourselves, to build ourselves up to something better than we ever were before, so that we can say again, ‘I'm Gil Molari,’ and mean it.
It could happen to anyone. It could happen to you.
I didn't realize at first, of course, that I'd been infected by an unusual virus. Maybe I struggled to resist the idea far too long. I wish now that I'd had the courage to admit it to myself much sooner. Other people, when they became aware of my unease, were unanimous in thinking that I overreacted and jumped to the wrong conclusion on the basis of inadequate evidence, and I could hardly blame them, because I'd tried as hard I could to sustain the same opinion. Alas, the real truth was that I didn't jump quickly enough; if I had, things might have worked out differently.
I didn't mean to infect Anne. I didn't mean to infect anyone. If I'd known—if I'd even suspected—I'd have done it all differently. But I didn't know. How could I? How could anyone?
Now, with the aid of hindsight, I can see the full significance of what happened the last time Anne and I had sex, after she came to the flat and cooked that special meal for us. At the time, I thought it was just a cruel trick of the imagination, but now I know that it wasn't. It was the first frantic outburst of the rogue virus which had established itself in the grey matter of my brain, spitting its toxins into the dark corners of my mind.
The sex was better than usual, and I suppose I have to consider the possibility that that was due to the virus, too, although I'd prefer to believe that it wasn't. I'd like to think that I had finally begun to break down the wall of anxiety with which Anne had somehow surrounded herself. The fact that she was willing to cook and eat the meal supports that view—I really was getting through to her, getting her to loosen up. No matter how often she denied it, I was utterly convinced that she was anorexic, and so her new interest in food seemed to me to be a hopeful sign that she might be pulling herself together. I knew well enough that she hadn't yet begun to enjoy sex—that it was something she did because she thought she ought to, or because she thought she had to do it in order to hang on to me, to keep me interested—but I had always thought that she'd learn to relax, in due time, and begin to take pleasure in it. That evening, she seemed to be on the very brink of doing that. She seemed more confident, more eager, more expectant.
I felt rather spaced out while I was moving back and forth inside her. At the time I put it down to t
he wine, but I really hadn't drunk very much, and now I know that it was the virus getting into gear. For me, sex has always been primarily a tactile experience, so there was nothing unusual in the fact that I had my eyes shut, but I'd never before felt so disconnected from anything outside the immediate experience.
I don't usually fantasize much—not that much—but I couldn't seem to help certain images floating into my mind; I was powerless either to resist or to take hold of them. They didn't make any sense: menacing shapes half formed and half visible in pools of shadow; eyes and feathers all confused. There was nothing explicitly sexual about them—not even, so far as I could judge, in any Freudian-style symbolic fashion—and yet they seemed to intensify my feelings and sharpen my sensations. The touch of Anne's hands as they brushed lightly over my back seemed impossibly soft and luxurious, and her skin, wherever it was in contact with mine, felt strangely insubstantial.
The intoxication I felt when I came was unexpectedly vertiginous; I felt that I'd completely lost my sense of gravity. I lost that sense of location which normally gave me a comfortable sense of being behind my eyes and between my ears, and for a moment or two I didn't seem to be inside myself at all, but somewhere else entirely. I remember thinking, in a disappointingly academic fashion, that it must be some similar sensation which convinces certain gullible people that they can project their ‘astral bodies’ out of their physical flesh, but I didn't seem to fly away. It was more of an expansion than a displacement.
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