"Blood drinker," murmured Everard. He was marveling, studying the face of this ghost again and that generous, kindly mouth and the expressive eyes. "Magnus!" he said with a start. "Not Magnus the Alchemist."
"Yes, that's who I was," replied the ghost. "And I knew you in those old times, Everard. You were made by Rhoshamandes and I was made, so to speak, by Benedict."
Everard laughed out loud. "Methinks it was you who made Benedict all right," he said. "Stealing the blood from him and making him the laughingstock of blood drinkers everywhere. And so you've become a ghost, a ghost of a blood drinker."
"I don't think I'm the only one in this world," said Magnus, "but I've had help from my closest friends here, help in becoming what you see before you."
"Well, it bears no resemblance to the wicked old hunchback I knew," Everard said, but he was immediately sorry. He looked down and then up. "I regret those words," he whispered. "I beg your pardon."
But Magnus was smiling. "No need to be sorry. I was a frightening creature. One of the great advantages of being a ghost is that you can perfect the etheric body much more profoundly than ever you could the physical body even with the Blood. And so you see me as I had always wanted to look."
It was shaking Everard to his bones that this was Magnus, the Magnus he'd known, yes, and the Magnus who'd made the Vampire Lestat, the fledgling who'd changed vampiric history. And yes, he could somehow see through this dazzle and gloss the Magnus that he had known, that wise and brilliant alchemist who'd begged Rhoshamandes so eloquently for the Blood, that healer who'd worked miracles amongst the poor, and studied the stars with a bronze telescope before ever Copernicus had become famous for it.
This was Magnus, beloved of Notker of Prum, later brought into the Blood by Benedict quite deliberately and lovingly. Notker was alive now somewhere, of that Everard was certain. Rhoshamandes had said that Notker's music would be heard in the snowy Alps when a thousand older blood drinkers had gone to their fiery graves.
Magnus a ghost now.
And the other? This Raymond Gallant, who had he been?
"Are you hearing the Voice now?" asked the ghost named Raymond Gallant.
"No," Everard answered. "He went silent right before I saw you. He's gone. I don't know how I know, but he's gone. I can sort of feel it when he's aiming his magic beam at me, as if it were some kind of laser."
He tried not to stare so much at these two. He glanced uneasily at Teskhamen.
"Has he never said anything to you about his ultimate purpose?" asked Teskhamen. "Has he offered you secrets?"
"Mostly threats," replied Everard. "He's so childish, so stupid. He tries to prey on my fears, my ... my being so very alone of late. But I can see through his tricks. He speaks of unendurable pain, and near blindness, and that he is powerless to so much as lift a finger."
"He said those things? Used those words?" asked Raymond Gallant.
"Yes, he says he's helpless on his own, that he requires my loving assistance, my devotion, my trust in him. As if I should trust him! He says I have powers in me of which I don't dream, and he talks of blood drinkers hiding in Italy and wants me to burn them out. He's merciless."
"But you don't listen to him."
"Why should I?" asked Everard. "And what can I do if this is one of the ancient ones and if he wants to destroy me? What can I do!"
"You do know how to hide from the Fire Gift, don't you?" asked Teskhamen. "Your best way is to simply escape. Travel away from the spot as fast as you can, using the Cloud Gift if at all possible to simply get beyond the attacker's range. If you can go swiftly down into the earth, that's even better, because it cannot penetrate the earth. Whoever sends the Fire Gift has to see the victim, see the building, see the target. That's the only way it can work."
Everard was no expert on any of this. He was more grateful for this clarifying advice, frankly, than he could say. He had to admit Benji Mahmoud had been saying something similar, but he'd never trusted him any more than humans trusted televangelists.
And Everard had never been formally taught a thing about the higher gifts. He was not going to confess that all he knew of them he'd learned from the Vampire Chronicles, and that he'd been practicing his skills, if that's what they were, based on descriptions written by disreputable vampire authors like Lestat de Lioncourt and Marius de Romanus and so forth and so on. He let these thoughts roll where they might. Curse the Children of Satan and their rules and injunctions. They hadn't cared anything for vampiric gifts!
Now the great Rhoshamandes, his maker, that was another matter. What tales he'd told of riding the winds, and, oh, the spells he could cast, the visions he could arouse for Everard and others. Rhoshamandes in his burgundy-colored robes, fingers laden with rings, playing chess at his great inlaid-marble chessboard with those kings and queens and knights and bishops and pawns carved especially for him, to whom he'd given various names. Chess was his favorite game, he declared, because it pitted Mind Gift against Mind Gift.
"Yes," Magnus whispered. "I remember him so very well. And I often sat at that chessboard with him."
Everard would have blushed had he been human, to have had his thoughts read that easily, those images examined. But he didn't mind. He was too fascinated with this ghost of Magnus. So many questions came to his mind: "Can you eat, can you drink, can you make love, can you taste?"
"No," said Magnus, "but I can see very well, and I can feel hot and cold in a pleasurable way, and I have a sense of being here, being alive, occupying this space, being tangible, and having a tempo in time...."
Ah, this was Magnus all right, this was Magnus talking, who could talk the night away with Rhoshamandes. How Rhoshamandes had loved him and respected him, throwing a veil of protection about him and forbidding all blood drinkers to harm him. Even after he'd stolen the Blood, Rhoshamandes had not hunted him down and sought to kill him.
"He has a great fascination for me," Rhoshamandes had said. "And Benedict is to blame for allowing it to happen. But let's see what he will do with the Blood, poor humpbacked and clever Magnus."
"Be very careful, Everard," said Magnus. He looked for all the world like a man of forty-five, or perhaps fifty in these healthy times of plenty and rampant good health, with glowing skin and hair truly the color of ashes. Why hadn't he made himself flamingly beautiful like the flashy Lestat with that leonine golden mane, and those violet-blue eyes? But as he gazed at Magnus, this seemed a stupid question. This was a splendid being here before him. They were both splendid, these ghosts. And they could change, couldn't they, anytime they wanted to.
"Yes, but we try not to do that," said Raymond. "We seek to perfect what we are, not to constantly alter it. We seek to find something that is a true expression of our soul with which to shape what makes up our form. But there's no need for you to trouble yourself over these things."
"Stay safe," said Teskhamen. "Be clever. And if this Voice provokes a gathering of the tribe, consider coming. We cannot stay the same in these times, because nothing now can stay the same, and we must needs meet the challenges as humans are meeting them."
Teskhamen took a small white card out of his pocket and handed it to Everard. A gentleman's calling card. On it was written the name TESKHAMEN in golden script, and beneath it was an e-mail very simple to memorize, actually, and a phone number.
"We're going now, friend," said Teskhamen. "But if you need us, contact us. We wish you luck."
"I think I'll survive this, same way I survived world wars and the earlier massacre, but thank you. And thank you for putting up with my ... my disagreeable behavior."
"It's been a pleasure," said Teskhamen. "One last bit of advice. Keep listening to Benji. If there is to be a coming together, Benji will give the word."
"Hmmm." Everard shook his head. "A coming together? Like last time? A big showdown to stop the wicked Voice the way the wicked Queen was stopped? How do you have a showdown with a Voice that can pop into the head of anyone at any time and can hear anything pe
rhaps that I'm saying ... or even thinking?"
"That's a good question," said Raymond Gallant. "It all depends, doesn't it, on what the Voice really wants."
"And what is that," said Everard, "other than to turn us against one another?"
The three creatures rose to their feet. Teskhamen extended his hand.
Everard also rose with obvious respect. "You make me think of better times, you really do," he murmured in spite of himself. Suddenly he was furious at himself for becoming so emotional.
"And what times were those?" asked Teskhamen kindly.
"When Rhoshamandes was still ... Oh, I don't know. Hundreds of years ago before the Children of Satan destroyed his castle. Destroyed everything. That's what happens when blood drinkers unite, band together, believe things. We're evil. We've always been."
The three looked at him calmly without making the slightest response. Nothing in their expressions or demeanor suggested agreement. Or evil.
"And you have no idea at all where Rhoshamandes might be, do you?" asked Raymond Gallant.
"None," said Everard. And then he found himself confessing, "If I did, why, I'd go to him." Such strange words coming from him, who had such complete disregard for other blood drinkers, who scorned covens, havens, vampire hostels, and gangs. But he knew he had confessed the truth, that he'd travel the Earth to find Rhoshamandes. Actually, he never traveled anywhere much. But it was good to think he'd travel the Earth to find his old master. "He's long gone, dead, burned up, immolated, whatever!" he said sharply. "Has to be."
"You think?" asked Raymond Gallant.
A sudden pain tugged at Everard's heart. He has to be dead or he would have found me by now, gathered me to him, forgiven me....
Rhoshamandes had abandoned the wild thick forests of France and Germany in the 1300s. Weary of battling the ever-increasing Children of Satan who had cannibalized his own fledglings to his eternal misery, he had simply left the ancient battlefield.
But Everard had never known the true story. The Children of Satan had had Everard by then, dragging him out nightly to scourge the innocent of Paris. They bragged that they'd driven the last great blasphemer from French land. Had they really? Magnus they had not feared as they had Rhoshamandes.
They told tales of Rhoshamandes's castle and lands burnt in the daylight hours by rabid monks and nuns driven to do it by the nightly whispers of Children of Satan pretending to be angels. Ah, those times. Those superstitious times when vampires could speak to gullible religious minds and play infernal games with them.
"Well, I can tell you this," Everard said, denying the pain. "If he's slumbering underground somewhere under some Merovingian ruin, the Voice won't get anywhere with him, no matter what state he's in. He's too wise for that, too powerful. He was ... he was magnificent."
Sharp grinding memory. Everard going out in filthy rags with the Children of Satan to harry the Parisian poor, slinking into filthy hovels to feed on the innocent, and somewhere near the voice of Rhoshamandes calling: "Everard, break free. Come back to me!"
"Goodbye, Everard," said Teskhamen, and the three moved off together.
For a long moment, Everard watched them as they walked down the narrow street and disappeared around the corner.
Not a single human being would ever guess what they were. Their human poise was simply superb.
He leaned his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. Was he glad they were gone? Or was he sorry?
Did he want to run after them and say, Don't leave me here! Take me with you. I want to stay with you.
Yes and no.
He did want to do that, but he simply could not do it. He didn't know how to do that, how to speak that honestly to them, how to implore them for their help or their companionship. He didn't know how to be anything but what he was.
Suddenly the Voice was there. He heard it sigh.
"They can't protect you from me," said the Voice. "They're devils."
"They didn't seem like devils to me," said Everard testily.
"They and their laughable Talamasca!" said the Voice. "Be damned!"
"Talamasca," whispered Everard in amazement. "Of course. Talamasca! That's where I heard that name Raymond Gallant before. Why, that man was known to Marius. That man ..." Died about five hundred years ago.
It was amusing to him suddenly, very amusing. He'd always known about the Talamasca, the old Order of scholars of the supernatural. Rhoshamandes had warned him about them, and their old monastery in southern France. Yet his maker had urged him to respect them and leave them alone. He'd loved them the way he'd loved Magnus.
"For they are gentle scholars," he'd said in that deep seductive voice of his, "and they mean us no harm. Ah, but it is astonishing. They know as much of us as the Church of Rome, but they do not condemn us and they mean us no harm. They want to learn about us. Imagine it. They study us, and when have we ever studied ourselves? I rather like them for that. I do. You must never hurt them."
And so their membership included humans and ghosts, did it? And blood drinkers. Raymond Gallant, Teskhamen, and Magnus.
Hmmm. Did all of their human members become ghosts when they died? Well, that would never have worked, surely. There'd be thousands of spectral members floating around by now. That was absurd.
No. It was fairly easy to figure that it was a rare occurrence to recruit a dying member from their ranks to remain with them "in spirit" simply because it was so very rare for any dying person's spirit to remain behind. Oh, the planet had lots of ghosts, but they were an infinitesimal remnant of all those poor slobs who'd been born and died since the dawn of creation. But how blessed must be the ghosts inducted into the Talamasca with book-educated sorcerers to help them learn to materialize? That's what Magnus had been driving at. No wonder they'd been so good at it, those two, with their warm ruddy complexions and their shining moist lips.
But the vampire, Teskhamen. How in the world did he become part of them?
Everard ran a quick scan in his mind of what he'd learned about the Talamasca--from Lestat's writings, and Marius's memoir. Dedicated, honorable, committed to truth without religious suspicion, censure, or judgment, yes. If their ranks included vampires, the vast majority of the rank and file certainly had never guessed it.
Then there was the great mystery of who had founded the Talamasca. If it turned out to be a vampire, a mere blood drinker, such as Teskhamen, old as he was, well, that would be a crushing disappointment to the others, wouldn't it?
Hmmm. That was their problem.
He studied the little white card, and put it safely in his jacket.
"Contemptible," said the Voice. "In the end, I will burn them all as well. I will burn their libraries, their little museums, their retreat houses, their--."
"I get it!" said Everard angrily.
"You will rue the night you mocked me."
"Oh, yeah?" Everard said in a low American drawl. "If you're all that strong, Voice, why don't you give it a try? They've been around since the Dark Ages. And they don't appear to be afraid of you at all."
"You infuriating stupid disrespectful and foolish monster!" said the Voice. "Your time will come."
Everard was suddenly startled. A waiter stood beside him with a mug of coffee, the steam rising in the cool air.
"Talking to yourself again, Signore de Landen?" he said cheerfully.
Everard smiled, shook his head, and took out a couple of bills of big, pretty Italian currency and gave them to the young man.
Then he sat back and held the warm cup in both hands. Lestat did get that right in the Vampire Chronicles, he thought. It was nice to hold a hot mug of coffee in your two hands and let the steam rise into your face.
The only sounds around him were the predictable voices of the town. A motor scooter firing up somewhere far off and then belching as it went away into the country, and the low hum of conversations blossoming behind closed doors.
He was thirsting.
Suddenly he was thirsting,
really thirsting, but he hadn't the energy to go far enough away from his home to satisfy his thirst. He left the coffee, and got up and made his way through the streets to the city gates.
Within moments he'd passed out of the illumination of the high-walled town and he was walking uphill fast in cool darkness and he felt like weeping and he didn't quite know why.
Was it conceivable that we are a tribe? Was it conceivable that we were beings who could love one another, be gentle with one another the way that Teskhamen had been with his spectral companions, the way Rhoshamandes had been with him so very long ago?
What if there had never been any Children of Satan in his existence, starving and torturing him and teaching him that he was a child of the Devil, that he had to be miserable and create misery for others, that he was a damned and loathsome thing?
What if there had only been mad Rhoshamandes in his crumbling old castle speaking of poetry and power and "splendor in the Blood"?
Human beings didn't buy all that old religious rot nowadays, did they? They didn't skulk about under the burden of Original Sin and concupiscence anymore, pleading for absolution for having bedded their wives the night before going to Holy Communion, cursing their anatomy for dooming them to Eternal Damnation, denouncing themselves as bags of stinking bones and flesh. No, quite the contrary. In this new century they were filled with hope and a new kind of innocence and strangely confident optimism that they could solve the problems confronting them, and cure all illness and feed the entire world. At least so it seemed in this clean and peaceful part of Europe which in the past had known so much suffering, so much misery, so much bloodshed and meaningless death.
What if such a bright and shining time had come for blood drinkers as well, even the most monstrous, as Everard had become? His thoughts drifted back in spite of himself to the last brother in the Blood he'd loved--such a fine, spirited young male vampire who, remembering little of his life before the Dark Gift, had seen life around him as miraculous, whispering of the Blood being a sacrament and singing long carefree songs of an evening to the moon and the stars.
But that one had been burnt to ashes by the great and terrible Queen Akasha when she passed over. Everard had seen that with his own eyes--all that sweet vitality extinguished in an instant, indifferently as fire engulfed the whole vampire hangout in Venice where so many others had perished as well. Why had Everard survived?