In class, she could barely keep her mind on the lecture. She kept drifting off, thinking about that long-ago night when Uncle Lestan had caught her in his arms and carried her up and up from that island. She saw him in that dim, shadowy little lawyer's office in Athens, Texas, saying, "Make it happen!"
Well, there had to be some explanation. And then it struck her. Of course. Her uncle knew the author of these books. Her uncle had perhaps inspired them. It was so simple she almost laughed out loud. That had to be it. He and his friend Louis had inspired this fiction. And when she'd tell him she'd found the books, of course, he would laugh and explain how they'd come to be written! He'd probably say he'd been honored to be the inspiration of such bizarre and romantic ramblings.
Sitting in the back of a history class, oblivious to the teacher's words, she slipped Interview with the Vampire out of her purse and checked the copyright: 1976. No, that couldn't be right. If her uncle had been a grown man by that time, well, now he'd be nearly sixty. No way was Uncle Lestan that old. That was positively ridiculous. But then ... how old was he? How old had he been when he'd rescued her from that island earthquake? Hmmm ... this wasn't adding up. Maybe he'd been just a boy, then, when he'd rescued her and he'd looked like a grown man to her--a boy of what, sixteen or seventeen, and now he was what, forty? Well, that was possible. But hardly likely. No, this did not add up, and overshadowing it all was her vivid conviction of his demeanor, his charm.
Class was over. Time to shuffle on, and go through the motions someplace else, to drift until she saw Murray waiting for her on some curb somewhere.... But surely there was a logical explanation.
Murray drove her away from the campus to a restaurant she particularly liked where Marge was to meet her for an early dinner.
It was getting dark. They had a regular table and she was glad that she had a little while to sit there alone, enjoy a badly needed cup of black coffee, and just think to herself.
She was looking out the window, paying very little attention to much of anything, when she realized someone had sat down opposite her.
It was Gardner.
She was badly startled.
"Rose, do you realize what you've done to me?" he asked. His voice was deep and tremulous.
"Look, I want you to leave," she started. He reached across the table and tried to take hold of her hand.
Drawing it back, she stood up and stumbled away from the table, running towards the back of the restaurant. She hoped and prayed the one small ladies' room would be empty.
Gardner came pounding after her, and when she realized her mistake, it was too late. He'd grabbed hold of her wrist and was dragging her out of the back exit into an alleyway. Murray was all the way around front, parked at the curb.
"Let go of me!" she said. "I mean it, I'll scream," she said. She was as angry as she had been when the book had struck her.
Without a word, he dragged her right off her feet and down the alleyway towards his car, and threw her in the passenger side, slamming the door and locking it with his remote.
When he went to open the driver's side, he unlocked only that door. She beat on the windows. She screamed. "Let me go!" she said. "How dare you do this to me?"
He started the car, backed out of the alley, and took off down the side street, away from the main boulevard where Murray was no doubt waiting to pay for Marge's taxi.
Down a quiet street, he drove the car at reckless speed, oblivious to the squeal of the wheels or enjoying it.
Rose beat on the windshield, on the side window, and when she could see no one anywhere around, she reached for the key in the ignition.
With a resounding blow he sent her backwards against the passenger door. For a moment she didn't know where she was, then it came back to her completely and horribly. She struggled to sit up, reaching into her purse and quickly finding the iPhone. She sent the SOS message to Murray. Then Gardner grabbed the purse from her and, buzzing down his window, hurled it out, phone and all.
By now the car was speeding through traffic, and she was being thrown from one side to the other as it swerved around one intersection after another. It was making for old Palo Alto, the neighborhood where Gardner lived. And soon the streets would once again be deserted.
Again, Rose banged on the windows, gesturing frantically to passing cars, to people on the sidewalk. But no one seemed to notice her. Her screams filled the car. Gardner grabbed her by her hair and pulled her head away from the window. The car slammed to a stop.
They were in some side street now with big trees, those big beautiful dark green magnolias. He turned her around and held her face in the vise of his thin fingers, his thumb biting painfully into her jaw.
"Who the Hell do you think you are!" he breathed at her, his face dark with rage. "Who the Hell do you think you are to do this to me!"
These were exactly the words she wanted to speak to him, but all she could do was glare at him, her entire body soaked in sweat. She grabbed at his hair with both her hands and yanked it as he'd yanked hers. He hurled her back against the window again and slapped her repeatedly, until she was gasping uncontrollably.
The car drove on, tires screaming, and as she struggled to sit up again, her face burning, she saw the driveway in front of her, and the old Georgian house looming over her.
"You let me go!" she screamed.
He dragged her from the car, pulling her out the driver's side, and dragging her onto her knees on the concrete.
"You don't begin to know what you've done to me!" he roared. "You miserable stupid girl! You don't begin to grasp what your fun and games have done."
He dragged her through the door and hurled her across the dining room so that she hit the table hard and sank to the floor. When he lifted her up, she'd lost one of her shoes, and blood was pouring from her face down onto her sweater. He hit her again, and she went out. Out.
Next thing Rose knew, she was in the bedroom. She was on the bed, and he was standing over her. He had a glass in his hand.
He was talking in a low voice, saying once more how she'd broken his heart, how she'd disappointed him. "Oh, this has all been the disappointment of my life, Rose," he said. "And I wanted it to be so different, so very different, with you, Rose, of all the flowers of the field, you were the fairest, Rose, the fairest of all."
He came towards her as she struggled to get up.
"Now we will drink this together."
She tried to scurry backwards, away from him, off the bed, but his right hand caught her wrist while, with his left hand, he held the glass of liquid high out of her reach.
"Now, stop it, Rose." He growled between his clenched teeth. "For the love of God, do this with dignity."
Suddenly a pair of headlamps sent their beams over the master-bedroom windows.
Rose began to scream as loud as she could. It was nothing like those nightmares in which you try to scream and you can't. She was shrieking. The screams just erupted uncontrollably.
He dragged her towards him as he went on and on, shouting over her screams: "You are the most dreadful disappointment of my life," he cried, "and now as I seek to make all things new, to make all things whole, for you and for me, Rose, you do this to me, to me!"
With the back of his hand, he slammed her into the pillow. Out. When she opened her eyes, a foul burning fluid was in her mouth. He had her nose pinched between his fingers. She gagged, and bucked and struggled to scream. The taste was ghastly. Her throat was burning. So was her chest.
He thrust the half-full glass at her and the liquid inside it splashed on her face, burning her. The smell was acrid, chemical, caustic. It burned into her cheek and neck.
Twisting around as she struggled against his grip, she vomited on the bed. She kicked at him with both feet. But he wouldn't let go. He threw the liquid at her and she turned with all her strength, feeling it splash against her face. It went into her eyes. It blinded her. Her eyes were on fire.
Murray's voice sounded from the hallway door.
"Let her go."
And then she was free, screaming, crying, grabbing for the covers to wipe the burning liquid off her face, and from out of her eyes.
The men were scuffling and the furniture was breaking. There was a loud crash as the mirror on the dresser broke.
"I've got you," said Murray as he grabbed up Rose and carried her out of the room, running down the steps with her.
She could hear sirens approaching. "Murray, I'm blind!" she sobbed. "Murray, my throat is on fire."
Rose woke up in the ICU. Her eyes were bandaged, her throat was aching unbelievably, and her hands were strapped so that she couldn't move.
Aunt Marge and Murray were with her. Desperately, they were trying to reach Uncle Lestan. They would not give up trying. They would find him.
"I'm blind now, aren't I?" Rose wanted to ask, but she couldn't talk. Her throat wouldn't open. The pain in her chest was grinding.
Gardner Paleston was dead, Murray assured her. He'd died from a blow to the head in the fight with Murray.
It was an open-and-shut case of attempted murder-suicide. The bastard, as Murray called him, had already posted his suicide note online fully describing his plan to give Rose "the burning hemlock," along with an ode to their mingled decomposing remains. She heard Aunt Marge begging Murray to stop talking.
"We're going to find Uncle Lestan," Marge said.
Terror engulfed Rose. She couldn't speak. She couldn't see. She couldn't beg for reassurance; she couldn't even tell them about the pain, the unrelenting pain. But Uncle Lestan was coming. He was coming. Oh, what a fool she'd been, such a fool, to have loved Gardner, to have trusted Gardner. She was so ashamed, ashamed as she'd been years ago lying on the floor of Amazing Grace Home, so ashamed.
And all the confusion about the books, those books which had affected her so deeply that for days she'd lived in them, imagining Uncle Lestan to be the hero, rising with him, in his arms, towards the stars. Give me the stars.
She lapsed back into sleep because there was no place else to go.
There was no day or night, only an alternating rhythm of activity and noise. More commotion in the room, and in the corridor beyond, more voices near at hand yet muffled, indistinct.
Then a doctor was talking to her.
He was close by her ear. His voice was soft, deep, resonant, sharpened by an accent she didn't know.
"I am caring for you now," he said. "I will make you well."
They were in an ambulance moving through traffic, and she could feel every bump of the road. The siren was distant but steady. And when she woke next she knew she was on a plane. She could hear Marge talking softly to someone, but it wasn't Murray. She couldn't hear Murray.
Next time she woke she was in a new bed, a very soft bed, and there was music playing, a lovely song from Romberg's The Student Prince. It was the "Serenade" that long ago Uncle Lestan had sung to her. If her eyes had not been wrapped tight, they would have filled with tears. Maybe they did fill with tears.
"Don't cry, precious dear," said the doctor, the doctor with the accent. She felt his silken hand on her forehead. "Our medicines are healing you. By tomorrow this time, your vision will be restored."
Slowly it dawned on her that her chest no longer hurt. There was no pain in her throat. She swallowed freely for the first time in so long.
She was dreaming again, and a soft tenor voice, a rather deep voice, was singing Romberg's "Serenade."
Morning. Rose opened her eyes very slowly, and she saw the light of the sun coming in the windows, and gradually the deep sleep left her, falling away from her as if veils were being drawn back, one after another.
It was a beautiful room. A wall of glass looked out on the distant mountains, and between here and there was the desert, golden in the burning sun.
There was a man standing with his back to her. At first the image of him was indistinct against the bright distant mountains and the deep blue sky.
She sighed deeply and turned her head easily back and forth on the pillow.
Her hands were free and she brought them up to touch her face. She touched her lips, her moist lips.
The young man came into focus. Broad shoulders, tall, maybe six feet tall, with luxuriant blond hair. Could it be Uncle Lestan?
Just as his name rose to her lips, the figure turned to face her and came towards the bed. Oh, how completely he resembled Uncle Lestan, but he was younger, definitely younger; he was the image of Uncle Lestan in a young boy.
"Hello, Rose," he said, smiling down at her. "I'm so glad you're awake."
Suddenly her vision dimmed, blurred, and a pain shot through her temples and her eyes. But it was gone, this pain, as quickly as it had come, and she could see again. Her eyes were only dry and itching. She could see perfectly.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I'm Viktor," said the boy. "I'm here to be with you now."
"But Uncle Lestan, is he coming?"
"They're trying to find him. It's not always easy to find him. But when he finds out what happened to you, I promise you, he will come."
The young boy's face was cheerful, fresh, his smile generous and almost sweet. He had large blue eyes so like Uncle Lestan's, but it was the hair and the shape of his face more than anything that locked in the resemblance.
"Precious Rose," he said. In a soft even voice, an American voice that had nevertheless a kind of crisp enunciation to it, he explained that Aunt Marge could not be here now in this place. But Rose was safe, completely safe, from all harm, and he, Viktor, would see to that. And so would the nurses. The nurses would take care of her every need.
"You've had surgery after surgery," Viktor said, "but you're improving wonderfully and soon you'll be fully yourself again."
"Where is the doctor?" Rose asked. When he reached for her hand, she clasped his.
"He'll come tonight, after sunset," said Viktor. "He can't be here now."
"Like a vampire," she said, musing, laughing softly under her breath.
He laughed with her, gently, softly. "Yes, very like that, Rose," he said.
"But where is the Prince of the Vampires, my uncle Lestan?" Never mind that Viktor would never in a thousand years understand her mad humor. He would ascribe it to the sedatives that were making her loopy and almost content.
"The Prince of the Vampires will come, I assure you," Viktor answered. "As I said, they are searching for him now."
"You're so like him," she said dreamily. There came that pain again to her eyes and that blurring vision, and it seemed for one instant that the window was on fire. She turned her head away in a panic. But the pain stopped and she could see clearly all the objects of this room. What a pretty room, painted a cobalt blue and with bright white enameled moldings, and on the wall a brilliant painting of roses, wild, exploding roses against a backdrop of a darker blue.
"But I know that painting, that's my painting," she said. "That's from my bedroom at home."
"All your things are here now, Rose," said Viktor. "Just tell me whatever you want. We have your books, your clothes, everything. You'll be able to get up in a few days."
A nurse came into the room, soundlessly, and appeared to be checking the equipment that surrounded the bed. For the first time, Rose saw the glistening plastic sacks of IV fluid, the slender gleaming silver cords that ran to the needles taped to her arms. She really was drugged. One moment she thought her mind was clear and the next she was astonished or confused. Clothes. Get up. Books.
"Any pain, darling?" asked the nurse. She had soft brown skin and large sympathetic brown eyes.
"No, but whatever it is, give me more of it." She laughed. "I'm floating. I believe in vampires."
"Don't we all?" asked the nurse. She made some adjustment in the IV feed. "There now," she said, "you'll be sleeping again soon enough. When you sleep you heal, and that's what you must do now. Heal." Her shoes made a soft squeaking noise as she left the room.
Rose drifted and then she saw Vik
tor again smiling down at her. Well, Uncle Lestan never wore his hair that short, did he? And never did he wear that kind of sweater vest, even if it was cashmere, or a pink shirt like that open at the neck.
"You look so like him," she said.
In the distance she heard the "Serenade" again, that plaintive, painful music, trying to describe beauty, pure beauty, and so heartbreakingly sad. "But he sang that to me when I was little...."
"You told us this," said Viktor, "and that's why we're playing it for you now."
"I could swear, you look more like him than any human being I've ever seen in my life."
Viktor smiled. Why, it was that same smile, that same infectious and loving smile.
"That's because I'm his son," said Viktor.
"Uncle Lestan's son?" she said. She was so drowsy. "Did you say you were his son?" She sat up, staring at him. "My God in Heaven! You are his son. I had no idea that he had a son!"
"He doesn't have any idea either, Rose," said Viktor. He bent over her and kissed her forehead. She put her arms around him, the wires streaming from their needles. "I've been waiting such a long time," he said, "to tell him myself."
6
Cyril
HE SLEPT FOR MONTHS at a time. Sometimes years. Why not? In a cave on Mount Fuji, he had slept for centuries. There were years when he slept in Kyoto. Now he was in Tokyo. He didn't care.
He was thirsty and crazed. He'd been having bad dreams, dreams of fire.
He crawled from his hiding place and went out into the teeming nighttime streets. Rain, yes, cooling rain. Didn't matter to him much who the victim was, as long as it was young and strong enough to survive that first bite. He wanted hearts that would pump the blood into him. He wanted that blood being pumped by another heart through his heart.
As he walked deeper and deeper into the Ginza district of the city, the neon lights delighted him and made him happy. Lights flickering, dancing, racing up and down and across on the borders of great moving pictures. Lights! He decided to take his time.
Strange it was that when he emerged from his hiding places, he always knew the languages and the ways of the people who were nearest to them. He was never surprised so much as delighted by their goings-on. Rain couldn't stop the crush of people here, the beautiful, fresh-faced, scrubbed, and scented children of this century, so rich, so innocent, so willing to provide him with draught after draught of their blood.