Sustenance

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “Are you changing your mind about becoming what I am?” he asked, thinking of Susanna, who had changed her mind when it was too late, and who had tried to end his undead life because of it.

  “I don’t know,” she said petulantly. “Sometimes, when I’m feeling on my own a bit too much, I can see the advantage of not going on.”

  “It’s likely you’ll have a decade or more before you have to make up your mind,” he said, favoring her with a sad smile. “I don’t ask you to do it for me, but for yourself. If you do not want to live as those of my blood must, then I can tell you how to arrange matters.”

  “You’re having doubts, too?” she asked.

  “Ah, Charis, you have enough for the both of us,” he said, a bit sadly. The fire in the stove had taken hold; the smell of burning apple-wood filled the room before he finished closing the tinder-box. He went back to the bed and slipped under the duvet.

  “Under the cover. Now that’s unusual,” she said, trying to figure out what he meant by it. “You usually lie on top, don’t you.”

  “As you say, the room is chilly, and I’m tired of wrestling with the bedding.” He turned to her, smiling.

  “But you’re still dressed.” She plucked at his sleeve to underscore her complaint. “I’d like you naked.”

  “Not at present, I think.”

  “The scars still?”

  He shook his head. “The sunlight. I’m not lying on my native earth, and I’m barefoot. The sun can be painful if I’m not dressed, or unless I close all the shutters, which would be a pity on such a fine morning.” He turned to her. “If you would rather put something on, to establish parity, please do.”

  She tugged the duvet more closely around her. “That’s not what I had in mind, and you know it.” Her eyes were shining, but not entirely from desire; she was eager to force him to admit that much of what he told her was untrue; the prospect of having to live with such … ancient restrictions on her activities was beginning to rankle. “Native earth. Sunlight. Running water. It’s like something out of a Medieval romance. Do you have to count grains of millet or sunflower seeds? Do white horses seek out your resting places? Do flowers wither where you tread? I know that last is nonsense.”

  “No, not nonsense. That is a creation of storytellers, like the belief that you can stop a charging tiger by throwing a glass ball at it, which is supposed to make the tiger think that it is seeing its cub reflected in the glass. I have no idea how that one originated.” He trailed his finger along her brow, her nose, the curve of her lips. “The cross is no problem for vampires, nor the Star of David, nor the crescent of Islam, or the wheel of the religions of India. Garlic will not prevent us from entering a room—although it does tend to keep off mosquitos. We can cross thresholds without invitation. We can say the names of deities without hazard.” He looked at her steadily. “Fire can kill us if it reaches the spine. Anything that destroys the nervous system will destroy us.”

  “Yes, you’ve told me this before. I’m aware of all the dangers.”

  “I surmise that; you’ve paid attention,” he said, taking her hand in his. “But you will need to remember these things until you accustom yourself to them: daylight, as I’ve said, can be enervating to vampires; water is enervating unless contained in our native earth. So no passion on the beach or in the desert before sundown.” His attempt at a chuckle fell flat. “I would like full concentration and energy when we enjoy our explorations.”

  She gave an acrimonious sigh. “Can you at least snuggle?”

  “With pleasure,” he said, turning on his side and drawing her close to him spoon-fashion; he could feel tension in her that was not the product of unaddressed desire, but of some greater vexation. “What’s on your mind, Charis. You aren’t simply worried about how you’ll manage things in the future.”

  “Why can’t I be worried about that?” she demanded.

  “You can, if that pleases you, but I am aware that there is sorrow in you, and dismay. I believe something has happened that is eating at you, in a very personal, present way. Are you having more trouble with Harold?”

  “With Arthur. He wants to come here when he’s eighteen: he’s 4F, of course; he’ll still be on crutches then. David might not be so lucky. Arthur won’t be drafted, and he wants to spend some time with me, or so he’s told me in a long letter.” She sighed heavily. “I don’t know how to respond.”

  “See him before you change, if that will heal some of your wounds; I might not be the only one who can see them,” he said, making no apology for his language. “By then you might have reached detente with your husband, and this would cause no additional hostilities.”

  “You think you know everything,” she said in a small voice. “Harold is being himself, and for the first time, I know him for what he is.”

  “I have tasted your blood, Charis: I know you, and I will know you until the True Death comes. Everything else is beyond me, but you, and everyone I have loved will be with me, a part of me, until the True Death.” He said it tenderly, but he could feel her flinch. “If you would prefer not to tell me, so be it, but I cannot be unaware of your state of mind.”

  She rolled over to face him. “Maybe later,” she conceded.

  “As you like.” He kissed her forehead.

  She took one of the pillows and swung it at his head. “You are the most aggravating man!” she announced as the pillow struck.

  He made no attempt to block the blow, and used no counter-measures to disarm her. “It isn’t my intention to seem so, nor do I want to distress you,” he said, tossing the pillow across the room as soon as she released it, watching a trail of feather float from the rent in the pillow’s side. He considered her briefly. “If you decide vampirism is not to your liking, there are many ways you can—”

  “Die the True Death? Be sure of not rising to your life? Without rousing suspicion?” She turned to face him directly. “Do you think I’ll need to know?”

  “I think all of us should know these things. All those alive of my blood know how to end vampire non-life, or how to create a believable vanishing that would permit any one of us to use that device to move on to our next … version of ourselves. It is harder now than it used to be. I still use my waxwork for identifying photographs, and in time I will find other ways to make what I am less obvious. I have yet to arrive at a method for dealing with fingerprints. As the world changes, so must we.” He could see the troubled expression in her eyes. “These days many people no longer believe in such creatures as vampires, which is useful, in its way.”

  “But why? What makes it necessary that we not remain as we are? Will we cease to be allies when I come to your life?”

  “That will be up to you,” he said gently. “Because nothing stays the same as long as it is alive. We age much more slowly than the living do. Being undead, we have a portion of ourselves that remains fixed at the moment of our first death and—”

  “That’s why we age very, very slowly,” she filled in for him. “I do listen to what you tell me.”

  “I know you do, because you question everything I tell you. You analyze what I say, subject it to skeptical examination until you are satisfied that it has been broken down into acceptable and unacceptable parts. With so much of your life gone askew, it is not remarkable that you are inclined to question more of your life than you had done before you left New Orleans. It’s your training as well as your natural inclination to question. I understand that, too. And I agree with you to a point: logic has its place, and in its place it is invaluable, but I have come to the conclusion that we do not have nearly enough knowledge of the nature of existence to be able to use logic alone to achieve the level of understanding we would like to have in dealing with the rudiments of existence. You will need time to weigh your experience with your logic and decide where the crux lies.” He slid a hand’s-breadth away from her so she could lie back and stare at the painted beams of the ceiling. “Religions—all religions, like all philosophies—of
fer their explanations of existence, as well as setting standards of conduct for a praiseworthy life, but all of them are subject to the human view of their own importance—”

  “Humans, you say, are limited to the human view of their own existence? You don’t count yourself among the human beings?” Her snapping eyes dared him to answer her. “You’re not human?”

  “I began human, but with as long a life as I have had I have found it difficult to sustain—”

  “I reckon it’s been about two thousand years that you’ve been your sort of alive, and I can’t believe it; not even tortoises live so long,” she said, reaching for his hand. “This is flesh. A little cool, I grant you, but flesh. How can you be two thousand years old?”

  “I am somewhat older than that,” he said apologetically.

  “Be serious,” she said.

  “I am being serious.” He nodded. “The urge to keep my humanity has shaped my behavior a bit less than three thousand years of my after-death life; for the first thousand years, I considered myself as much a demon as those I hunted. While I was held in prison, I began to grasp the loneliness of my circumstances, and that compelled me to manage my non-life in another way. I seek to retain my link with humankind, which is no easy thing, but I abhor what I was before I learned that, so I continue to strive for the human part in myself, no matter how difficult a task that may be. There is something monstrous in me that is quiescent most of the time; hundreds of years can pass and I will have nothing more than a faint distaste for the memories associated with it. Still, I know it is within me, but I rarely respond to its impetus. A little more than twenty years ago I had a taste of what it had been like for me all those centuries ago when I … dealt with the men who killed my ward. I had not summoned up my capacity for havoc for a very long time, yet it was as devastating as I remembered it.” He had killed all five of them with his bare hands in a single hour of fighting, and for a moment he was tempted to taste their blood as a vindication of Laisha. Their dreadful act ought to be acknowledged; if only by him. But the thought of having anything of them in him had stopped him from even licking their blood off his hands.

  “That sounds a bit facile to me,” she said, feeling a quiver of unease stir deep within her.

  “We need to be aware of the monster we can be,” he said, a bit distantly. “If for no other reason than to be able to hold that savagery at bay.”

  “Yes, I know it’s dangerous to give free rein to that fury you tell me is part of what we are. You’ve told me at least five times before now.”

  “And you still do not believe it is a real part of how you will change when you come to my life.” He spoke tenderly, and with such sadness in his blue-shot dark eyes that she began to wonder if his warning really were truthful.

  “I’ll bear it in mind; I promise you.” She lifted a corner of the duvet and thrust her arm out into the morning. “A little warmer. Do you happen to remember where my bathrobe is?”

  “On the back of the bathroom door,” he said, accepting that she would not discuss these various matters for the time being. “Would you like me to go and fetch it for you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Not because it’s cold, but with the servants moving about…”

  “I do understand,” he said. “It won’t take me more than a couple of minutes.” He got out of the bed, and paying no heed to the cold floors, let himself through the door into the hallway, then padded down to the elegant bathroom. He took Charis’ bathrobe from the peg on the back of the door, and started back to his guest bedroom only to find Valerot waiting at the top of the stairs. “Good morning,” he said to his steward in French.

  “To you as well, Comte,” said Valerot. “Are you and your guest up yet?”

  “Not yet. Is there something that needs my attention?” His manner was courteous, but now his senses were on the alert.

  “Oh, no; not yet. We’ll want to see you in the Great Hall at mid-day, but for now, I wanted to know if your guest is ready for breakfast.”

  “In half an hour, I should guess. We’ll come down to the morning room.” He smiled. “Thank you, Valerot.”

  Valerot ducked his head as a sign of appreciation. “Half an hour in the morning room. I will meet you there.”

  “Very good,” said Szent-Germain and passed on to the guest room, saying as he entered, “Breakfast in half an hour in the morning room.”

  “I suppose I should get dressed,” Charis said, watching him.

  “No need. You might want to brush your hair.” He tossed her bathrobe to her. “Otherwise, you will not shock the staff.”

  “My overnight bag is on the straight-backed chair,” she said, pulling on the bathrobe while sitting up straight in the bed.

  He reached it and handed it to her. “Here you are.” While she opened the herringbone-patterned hard-sided case, he went on, “The celebration begins at noon: you’ll want to dress for that. Nothing too fancy.”

  “I brought the mulberry skirt and the embroidered jacket,” she said as she took out her boar-bristle brush and set to work on restoring order to her hair.

  “That will do well.” He held out his arm to assist her to stand, but she ignored the gesture, and went on brushing her hair.

  “Give me ten minutes and I’ll be ready, if I can find my slippers.” She went from stiff-bristle brush to comb.

  Szent-Germain looked under the bed and retrieved her pair of red satin slippers, which he silently offered to her. “Am I neat enough for joining you at table?” he asked when he was on his feet once again.

  “If you want to,” she said. “I have to make an appointment with Celeste; my hair’s getting unruly.”

  “As soon as we get back to Paris, telephone her shop.” He opened the small closet and removed a black brocade smoking jacket which he donned, taking care to make sure the wide silken belt lay smoothly around his waist.

  “Are you ready?” she asked as she came down from the bed. This time when he proffered his arm, she took it with a slight toss of her head.

  “If you are,” he said as he opened the door and bowed her through it.

  TEXT OF A LETTER FROM D. G. ATKINS IN INDONESIA TO HAPGOOD NUGENT IN UPPSALA, SWEDEN, WRITTEN IN ENGLISH CODE AND CARRIED BY DIPLOMATIC COURIER, DELIVERED NINE DAYS AFTER IT WAS WRITTEN.

  Feb. 16 th. 51

  Hapgood Nugent

  Department of Mathematics

  Uppsala, 036

  Sweden

  My good friend Happy,

  I have written to your sister to inform Uncle Freddie that this project to which he assigned me is completed, and I am pleased to say that my skin is intact. My reputation is another matter, but the possibility that I might find myself turned away from the company of honest patriots was explained to me at the first, and the pension that has been arranged should provide for my basic wants. It has occurred to me that I will need to make arrangements to find other housing before I set foot in my native land again, if, in fact, I ever do. I still have that place in British Honduras, and I may go there for a while. You’ll pardon me if I believe you got the luckier result from the coin-toss that said you would align yourself with the Ex-Pats’ Coven for the purpose of learning who among them might be in active cahoots with the Reds, and the course I was set upon: following the traffic in human beings out of the refugee and displaced persons’ camps into the Third World, as well as authenticating the missions authorized by men working with Uncle Freddie. The Limeys would say he has a couple rum blokes working for him, and they’d be right. Still, I wanted adventure, and you may rest assured that I got it. You will have to remain in Sweden for another five years at a minimum, and that can’t be easy for you.

  I hope you’ll be able to find some way to tell your sister thank you for me—short of showing her this letter—she was a most effective go-between; but she’d better be careful of your brother-in-law: he would be appalled to learn that she was doing more than sending you the occasional money order. The reports she carried home after visiting
you last summer give me the opportunities I had been seeking. I got two years’ worth of investigation documents past Hoover’s Hounds; using Dave Wissart’s address for the reports gave an added level of protection: who in the FBI would suspect a Republican Congressman’s campaign planner of helping a real Communist Sympathizer? Hoover’s a vainglorious buffoon, but we’re stuck with him at the FBI for the time being.

  Uncle Freddie has ordered me to create a legend for myself to account for the years that I was officially missing, and I think I may have the first outline of one. I’ll fill you in if it turns out to meet Uncle Freddie’s standards. Do you happen to recall that paper I gave in ’39? The one about the universe not being static? The one all the Einsteinians found so objectionable? I may be using that as a jumping off place, as an academic argument that put my name on the mathematics landscape with a warning that I was worse than a union fink for doubting Papa Albert. It moves me away from the mess of the HUAC—not even Dave Wisssart could protect me from that stench—and puts me in with those whose hubris lost them all righteous mathematical chairs at respectable universities anywhere in the civilized world.

  You tell me you like Uppsala, and I wish I could believe you, but I know the Swedes—stiff-rumped, inhospitable, and proud. Thar’s not like you, Happy, and I can’t believe your work for Uncle Freddie has made you so cynical that you’re willing to take on protective coloration with your sister and me. You’re there because you either feel some loyalty to Uncle Freddie or you’ve been painted into a corner and you want to keep your friends and family away from CIA attention. You’re being cautious, and that is very good of you, as I am in preferring British Honduras to the US of A. My place is pleasant enough to provide you an amusing visit, but I’m prepared to wait until it’s safe. When it is, we can make our plans.