Divine Madness

by Melanie Jackson

  “One-one-thousand…The lightning is following me, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s after me now. Hang on,” she murmured. “This part isn’t great.”

  Miguel turned his head eastward where she looked, as the storm boil toward them over the crenellations of the church’s wall. He glanced again at her face. She wasn’t watching the clouds. He looked down a few degrees, following her line of sight. The two syringes she had prepared were close by, cushioned on top of the backpack. Her dose, the smaller one, was closest at hand.

  “I have to get to it immediately because my heart will be stopped and my eyesight gone,” she explained. “We’ll be blind and have only a minute, perhaps two, to work before brain damage begins to occur. If anything happens to me you must—”

  The thunder came before she was done speaking. The air around them froze, crackling like ice cubes in water.

  One-one—His lips counted, then they were hit with the strange blue lightning, a strike that they could feel but not hear.

  Ninon would have screamed if her lungs had not been paralyzed. It felt like a nest of maddened wasps attacking her skin and then chewing into her muscles. There was thunder on the inside of her skull, like a grenade set off in a small room, exploding in her brain, scrambling the cells that it touched. Light and heat entered every fiber of her body, spreading cruel fire. It was the fire of annihilation but also creation. But it didn’t burn like normal flames; rather it melted and reshaped everything inside. It filled the head with merciless sound, noise not understood by the ears, but rather a pulsation that altered the tissues, disturbed the very molecules of the body and drove them into violent rearrangement.

  Her brain sizzled and confused synapses at once smelled and tasted every odor and flavor she had even known. There was also pain as every nerve in her body overloaded. This had to be what Hell felt like.

  Then the flock of black birds—a murder of imagined crows—swooped in and buffeted her brain, confusing her and making it so she could no longer tell what was happening to either her own body or Miguel’s, though Ninon knew that death was closing in quickly for both of them. She knew she was being electrocuted. So was Miguel. His inhumanly strong body had bowed up, lifting both of them off the church’s roof. It lasted forever, pain and light and the vicious birds trying to pull her soul from her body.

  Noooooo! she screamed at the birds in her head as her agony reached its pinnacle.

  And then it was over. The last thing her failing eyes saw was lightning dancing over the clamoring church bell. The St. Elmo’s fire died out slowly, a last climax of eerie, incandescent light. Her world went dark. She was blind. She was dead. Again.

  But she had expected this. It happened every time. She was not afraid. Not for herself. Miguel was another matter. She had to move quickly. The first time was terrifying, being lost in the blackness of death but still partly alive and all aware. There was no knowing how the vampire would react. That part of him might become violent, and the chains would not restrain him for long.

  Her muscles were dead weight, but she gave her hand a command and it groped until it found the syringe, though every movement was dull agony.

  Pick it up! she ordered her hand. And again it obeyed, though not as quickly as she would like.

  Miguel first? No, she needed to see what she was doing. Anyway, she might not be able to reach his syringe. Her hands were losing all feeling now as they realized she was dead.

  Ninon made a huge effort and rolled onto her back. She pulled the medallion aside and turned the needle on herself, plunging it into her chest, angling it in below the breastbone and thrusting upward. She did it before she had time to consider the pain it would bring.

  At first there was nothing. Then her heart stuttered back to life. Her vision slowly returned. She didn’t wait for full sight, but immediately pushed the medallion away from Miguel’s chest and retrieved the second syringe. Her hands were still clumsy, but she managed not to drop the hypodermic. She rolled onto her knees, straddling him. Finding the proper spot below his sternum, she plunged it into the bull’s-eye of burned flesh that lay around Miguel’s heart.

  For one long second nothing happened. Then his eyes popped open and he gasped, drawing in his first breath of air. His face was a mask of agony, his tongue with its stinger distended popped out as he exhaled with pain; but she was reassured. You had to be alive to feel hurt.

  Church bells began to peal, shaken by the last gust of wind that had reversed its direction, pulling the storm away. Ask not for whom the bell tolls…Fireworks and bells—that made for a grandiose first time. It should have been more fun. Instead it was all fire and pain.

  “Welcome to my world,” she said softly when Miguel’s breathing quieted and his muscles relaxed. She put a hand to her own chest. The assaulted skin glowed gold over the scarring that sealed her renewed heart inside. “Laissez les bons temps rouler.”

  Miguel managed to lift his left hand and lay it on her thigh. His gaze was clear but very strange. His eyes were black and it was a bit like looking into a mirror.

  “I saw stars,” he whispered finally. “Did you?”

  She smiled at his small joke and didn’t say anything about the murderous crows that always swooped down on her at the moment of death, as if they were trying to tear apart her soul. If he saw stars, that was far better.

  “Just do it,” she said, lying on her stomach in a puddle. The storm was gone but the roof was still wet.

  Miguel stared at her slim back, so nearly childlike. Her skin was milky pale. She looked impossibly fragile and he felt ashamed that this should arouse him.

  “Haven’t we done enough for one night? Surely it can wait—”

  “No, the storm is clearing.” She turned her head in his direction. “That means Saint Germain and maybe your father will be able to get back into our heads if they are anywhere in the area. They’ll try to stop you. We have to have this finished before they can interfere.”

  Miguel hated her answer but knew she was right. Smoking Mirror would do anything to stop him from creating another truly like himself. The god reserved that right unto himself.

  “Okay. But neither of us is going to enjoy it.”

  “I never expected to. Anyway, it can’t be worse than electrocution,” she said softly.

  Feeling reluctant and more than a little unsure of what he was doing, Miguel stuck out his tongue and let the small stinger underneath unfold over his lower lip. He wasn’t sure where to inject her. The lower back looked strongest, but his stinger wasn’t that long and…

  “The neck,” she whispered. “That would be easiest.”

  He nodded, uncertain if he could speak without lisping.

  Miguel worried that his small stinger might not be strong enough to crack the bone of her spine, but it turned out he didn’t need to. By feel alone, he managed to slip it between the vertebrae, through the cushion of the disc and into the spinal cord. His lips sealed tight on her skin. Injecting the venom happened with no effort on his part. It felt something like a climax.

  Ninon gasped once as the stinger went in, but she didn’t react otherwise, though he knew she had to be in pain. Vampire venom burned like nothing else. He withdrew as quickly as he could, feeling ill but also disturbingly elated. A part of him had enjoyed doing that.

  Ninon unclenched her hands and tried to roll over. Her muscles were uncoordinated and she needed help. Recalling his own experience with the venom and the paralysis it caused, Miguel reached for her, offering comfort with his body because he couldn’t think what to say that would make this better. She curled close to him, accepting the shelter of his arms, though she didn’t appear to be at all cold and had no trouble breathing now.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, praying he hadn’t hurt her too much.

  “Different,” she said. “Strong. My heart has never been so physically powerful and I can breathe again. Let’s hope your gift to me allows me to remain this way—at least long enough to take out Sain
t Germain.” She looked up and asked gently: “How about you? Are you cold?”

  “No, not at all. Isn’t that odd?”

  “No, it’s good. That’s as it should be. I think.”

  After they had snuggled for a while, they dressed and began to talk of other things. Though they probably should have been planning their escape, instead they finally had the pillow talk they’d been denied before. It was rather more grim than for most couples.

  “Your lips say hello but your eyes say o Hell.” It was her small joke.

  “Too many bad first dates,” he answered. His brief smile didn’t reach his eyes. It was weird to think that this day had actually been harder for him than it was for her. But it probably had been. To embrace his inner killer was to have his innocence die. That she had been a willing victim, and that he hadn’t killed her was only small consolation. A line had been crossed for him and there was no going back—they both knew it.

  “You look beautiful,” she said. “More beautiful than before.”

  “So do you, though we’re not very human-looking.”

  “No, not very. I like your black patent-leather eyes, though—all shiny and mysterious.”

  “Patent-leather eyes…That sounds too toylike, and I’m not a teddy bear stuffed full of love and kindness.” Miguel’s voice was neutral. “I am, in fact, probably full of something very, very bad. But you must know that by now.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not all sugar and spice either. Doesn’t mean we need to slit our wrists or anything. Far from it.” He looked skeptical so she added: “This is just a weird kind of postcoital-vampire depression you’re feeling. Have a little faith. I think we’ll make a good team. If you still want to go with me…?”

  He took her hand and laced their fingers. “I do. There’s just one more thing I need to tell you about being a vampire and then I won’t bring the subject up again.”

  “Only one? I feel lucky.”

  “Yes. But it’s a big one. We are infertile, Smoking Mirror’s get,” he warned. “Our long life is purchased with the lives of our children and all the children thereafter. And only male vampires can make other vampires. I guess I should have mentioned this before.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t want to make more vampires. And I had a child. One was enough.” More than enough. She had no desire to ever again experience the catastrophic intimacy of bearing someone inside her body, giving that child life, and then watching him grow old and die. Just as all her friends and lovers always grew old and perished.

  You could have made him like you, given him the dark gift. The voice had returned. It sounded stronger too.

  Damned him? My own son? No. I wouldn’t do this to anyone.

  Unless they were already damned like Miguel?

  Ninon looked at Miguel but didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. The decision had been made and executed. She had turned Miguel only because he had already been contaminated by the darkness and in danger of being consumed by a greater evil that would cause him to harm others.

  If she was his first, so too was he a first for her. They had traded hells and perhaps saved each other from cruel disease—at least for a time. But it wasn’t something to put on a the calendar and celebrated every year.

  “What about your…true father? The Scotsman? Is he your only other family?” she asked suddenly. “Is there anyone you will have to explain this to?”

  “No. My biological father is long dead.” He didn’t mention his mother, and she didn’t ask. “I have no siblings either.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her brow wrinkled. “But if you’ve no family—no human family—to worry about, why come back here and face Smoking Mirror?”

  “Not for consolation, that’s for sure,” he said. He gave a wry smile. “I think I came for the same reasons you did. I needed help. The urge to…to draw blood was getting overwhelming. I could tell that I had to do something about it. Or die. Don’t think I didn’t consider that option for a while too. I still keep it in reserve. Mostly, I was looking for a way out. I thought maybe the old tablets would tell me something.”

  Ninon nodded with sympathy. “I thought that too, and was upset when the largest stone in the museum went missing.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll make a good vampire,” Miguel said idly. He added, “I’ve always been a morning person. I know some of them can go out in the day, but they sure don’t like it.”

  “You don’t have to be good. Just good enough,” she answered, telling a hard truth she hoped he was old enough to understand. There were some things you could never win at. Sometimes just surviving was a righteous fight. “Anyway, you may not have a problem with daylight. We’ll have to see.”

  “I guess we will. Tell me something about your father,” Miguel asked. “I’m trying to imagine him.”

  Ninon thought about his request. What could she say about a man as complex as her father had been? A shrink would likely say that her ambivalence toward love and relationships was all her father’s fault. After all, he had been involved in—in fact, caused—a bad marriage. A very bad marriage. So bad that he’d had an affair with a married woman, committed murder to save her, and then had to flee the country for this crime when his daughter was only thirteen, leaving her to fend off the lechers and fortune hunters who saw her as easy prey with her father gone.

  But for all that, she had loved him and was eternally grateful that he had taught her to be her own person. In life, one had to take the bitter with the sweet. She’d learned that lesson early.

  Finally she said: “My father was a musician, though it was not fashionable in that era to be passionate about music or dance. Once he and his friend Gaultier had a duel of lutes and played for thirty-six hours straight. My father won when Gaultier collapsed from exhaustion. He taught me to play with equal passion even though the Jesuits and my mother thought it a sin. You play too?”

  He blinked. “I did. Not anymore.”

  She touched the scars on Miguel’s hands that had been obvious after the electrocution when all their scars glowed. He had similar ones on his feet.

  “Miguel, did he…?” she asked hesitatingly when he didn’t say anything more. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  “No. It’s all right. How weird that the scars show now. Usually they are invisible.” He curled his fingers inward but only the index fingers could touch his palms without trembling. “Yes, it’s Smoking Mirror’s work. He felt that I was being stubborn about renouncing my Christianity.”

  “Bastard,” she muttered.

  “Yes, he is. And then some. What was it in Ecclesiastes—what has been made crooked cannot be made straight?” He flexed his hands again. This time it looked marginally easier. “The damage wasn’t devastating, but enough to guarantee that I won’t inflict my guitar playing on anyone—at least not any flamenco. And that was the only kind there was for me.”

  “Not into strumming those C, F, G folk songs? We’ll see what happens now. Your muscles and nerves will heal faster than you can imagine. Your chest is already healing its burns.” And inside she thought: It’s amazing your psyche isn’t as scarred as your hands.

  “I’ll hope, but I’m not expecting too much. It’s better that way. Hope…hurts.”

  Ninon nodded, not making a single sympathetic noise since pity would just be a burden he didn’t want. The proud did not want sympathy. She also had learned to travel light, to adapt to the new times, not die clinging to the old. Whenever possible she threw out unhappy memories, old grievances, dark emotions, but also hope and anticipation. People weren’t designed to carry more than one lifetime’s regret and bitterness. And one had to accept that sometimes you didn’t get a happy ending. It was good that he knew this already.

  But sad. Very sad to lose this too.

  “I play,” she told him. “I learned in Seville.”

  “I’d love to hear you,” Miguel said and meant it. There was no envy in his dark eyes, and his generosity about this touched her gently on the h
eart. Few would be so charitable when their own loss was great. “Don’t frown, Ninon. Really, it would be a consolation prize.”

  “You’ve paid top dollar for your father’s sins,” she heard herself saying, again angry at Smoking Mirror for doing this to his son. Though perhaps Miguel was truly lucky. He had lived this long. Some wizards killed their children—grandchildren too—in order to take back any power that had passed to them. That was what Saint Germain seemed to be doing as well, gathering up the power he thought his father had squandered on strangers—reclaiming his inheritance.

  Miguel shook his head. “No, the price has been high, but not the highest. I’ve refused to give in to the toxin he put in my blood. I never killed. I still own my soul. I have free will.”

  Which he had compromised for her. And if the electrocution did not help, his hunger would be worse than ever, perhaps impossible to control. A simple thank-you didn’t cover that sort of sacrifice, so she merely nodded.

  “Are you ready to return to the land of conspicuous consumption?” she asked, changing the subject. “I think that is where we need to go—eventually.”

  “I’m certainly ready to leave here. But aren’t we going after your magician? He’s in Mexico, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, but in this we have an advantage—finally. He is actually following me now. Anywhere I lead, he will pursue. We have the luxury of choosing where this confrontation will take place. I think putting some distance between us and Smoking Mirror would be wise. One battle at a time and all that.”

  “Do we sneak across the border?” he asked. “I take it you don’t want to leave too obvious a trail for anyone to follow.”

  “No, I don’t. There may be some questions about the explosion that blew up my house and a neighbor’s boat that went missing that night. And Saint Germain has probably got contacts in law enforcement. He was always good at befriending powerful politicians and he may have sicced them on me. Fortunately, getting across the border isn’t hard. You should have no problems. Your identity is intact. You can just cross the normal way—if you go soon.”