Why hadn’t they asked for advice? Her knowledge of the past was greater than anybody’s. From the time she’d left Eden, she had been—
She stopped, froze in her sidling progress. Somewhere ahead, busy little water tinkled. Eden? Eden.
She had not thought of that word literally in all of her time on Earth. But now suddenly it returned, bringing with it incredibly ancient memories. She whispered it, Eden, said it aloud: Eden. It was a name—of a place, yes, the mythical garden of the Hebrew Bible. But it wasn’t really that, no. Eden was home. In Prime, the word meant “granary,” but it called to memory a specific place. She saw wheat fields waving in the wind, and birds sailing in the tall clouds, and she heard the cries of children….
She wept, standing there alone in the tomb of her children, hearing the name of home in her mind and heart for the first time since she had—had—
What had she done?
Why was she here?
Who were these people who were here with her, the Keepers? Had been here…
Eden of the heart, Eden of the long nights, Eden lost…
A slow hand came around her ankle, the dry tips of the fingers clinging like a beetle’s claws. Stifling a cry of revulsion and sorrow, she shook it off.
The long, lacy dress hissed as she hurried along. Her progress was aimless. She was looking for life, but she smelled only death in this place, only death and an occasional whiff of dirty human skin. They were down here somewhere, she knew it, and so flashed her light only as needed, to see a turning or thread past an obstacle.
She really had no idea where she was going. She was running, that was the truth of it—running in fear through a death trap, not knowing who had killed the Keepers who had lived here, knowing only that her own danger right now must be very great.
She did not want to remain in these tunnels, not given that who or whatever had been killing Keepers might still be about. She sought ways upward, but each time she approached an exit, she was confronted with a fantastic, blasting hell unlike anything she had ever seen before, a hell in which she felt she would be entirely helpless. She watched vehicles careening past, pedestrians swarming the streets, all unfolding amid the most extraordinary chaos of noise she had ever heard, far louder than Cairo.
Then she smelled something. It was a new odor, warm and smoky, very different from the sodden stink of death that pervaded the black walls of this enormous tomb. She took a deep breath of it. Yes, there was heat in it, and smoke, and also some sort of meat.
Human cooking. She took the odor in, raised her head high and sniffed again, seeking for its direction. The scent was warm, running along the top of the tunnel.
She moved in the direction of its greater strength, thinking that she would kill them, for the first time in all her years taking life for a reason other than the need to eat. In Cairo, she had seen the brightness in their eyes, and actually been unable to eat a human child. She had put it down. And she regretted Ibrahim, and even Captain Kurt.
No more. Re-Atun had been bad enough, but the horror of this place was beyond forgiveness. Now she hated man. Man was the enemy.
Surrounded by the seething ruins of her beloved people, she made a shaking vow to kill them, to kill them all.
Soon she saw ahead of her a dull light. It was flickering, of lower frequency than the globes and tubes. A fire, yes. It was firelight. She came to a narrow stair, barely wide enough for her to ascend its steep upward curve. As she negotiated it on the narrow, slippery boots, she began to hear voices, low and brutal—the voices of human beings. Now the cooking odor was strong. There was a faintly familiar aspect to the scent, an odor that clung greasily to her tongue. She approached carefully, until she was at the top of the stairway. A tight squeeze would be required, but when she moved slightly to the right and backward, she would be in a space that, from the way it sounded, was just beside the human chamber. At all costs, she did not want to appear suddenly among them. If she did, they would certainly blow her to pieces.
Light flickered against the sides of large, silent machines. The great iron boxes had circular wells on them, and doors along their fronts emblazoned with the words ROYAL ROSE. She did not know what these things were, and could not discern the meaning of the words imprinted in the Latin alphabet, but the pots hanging from the ceiling and scattered across the dusty floor made it plain that this was—or had been—a kitchen.
The cooking odor was not old, though. Whomever was doing it was just beyond the next passage, near the glow of the fire. Seeing no sign of a human in this room, she slipped around the corner. Here was a much larger space. It was furnished with many tables and chairs, all broken and atumble, and centered on a large U-shaped counter that was covered with dust and bits of glass.
Behind the ruined counter, four dark forms were huddled around a kettle that was placed on a brazier. Under the brazier there danced a merry little fire. The kettle boiled, and the humans kept dipping and sipping its contents from chipped white cups. Three males and a female, she observed. The female was a splendid specimen, arrayed in a glittering gown that revealed plums of breasts and pale shoulders. Her blond hair hung down gracefully, but without her eyes properly made up, her lovely face seemed expressionless. Two of the males were identically dressed in black jackets and white shirts. The third, by contrast, was a scruffy, scabrous mess…but he had the face of a boy-child. In human years, he looked not fifteen.
He had a knife, and was cutting something and dropping bits of it in the pot.
“Come on, man,” one of the males said to him.
“I’m givin’ you what you bought, man.”
“Goddammit, Henry,” the female said, “I want this to work, man. It isn’t going to on a damn nickel.”
“Fuck—” the third male said, removing a leather case from his breast and giving the boy some pounds from it. The boy got up and went over to a dark stack of something. He used a small lamp, and in its light Lilith saw what they had.
He cut a bit off an arm and returned to the fire. He dropped the bit into the cookpot with a faint splash. “That’s good,” the female whispered, “oh, that is good….”
Those were the remains of her people—her children—in that pile. But what was this unholy horror? They were making a stew of them, infusing their cells into the water with heat.
And then she understood. Over the years, Keeper and man had grown close genetically, so close that a Keeper could infuse his blood into a human being’s veins. The human would live in perfect youth for about two hundred years, but only at the price of drinking the blood of its own kind. Then it would die, aging the whole two hundred years in a matter of days.
Lilith had forbidden this practice if it was done to save money on slaves. Only doing it for love was permissible, but those who did it—who fell in love with the prey—were considered a little…well, off.
But what were these humans doing? Why did they make this foul soup?
Then it hit her—slapped her across the face, slugged her in the stomach.
To stifle the cry that leaped to her throat, she thrust her fist into her mouth.
“What was that?”
“What?”
“Somebody out there?”
“Shit, man.”
What these creatures were doing was extracting the still-living essence from ripped-apart Keeper bodies, and drinking the liquor to make themselves young for a month or a year or so, until the pale whisper of Keeper blood they would absorb had gone.
Every time she thought, on this dreadful journey, that she had seen the worst, worse seemed to appear. Those bodies still bore life, suffering when they were cut, feeling with a dim and anguished awareness that they were being slowly consumed.
She stepped into the light. “Allo,” she said.
The female jumped up, its gown glittering. It said, “What in fuck is that?”
“I thought I smelled something,” one of the black-clad males muttered.
“I have a gun,” the boy said,
hardly even glancing at her.
“Where’d you get that dress, lady?” a male said. “You look like—”
“Shut up,” the boy said. He came over to her. “Get outa my face,” he said softly. “I got a business here, you wanna buy in? Fuck, you smell like a pig.” He went back to the others, strolling, his hips waving, arrogance oozing out of him. He said, “’S jus’ some old tunnel rat. They come up inna here alla time.”
“Well, you oughta get a apartment.”
“I ain’t takin’ this stuff up. Jesus!”
“This stuff,” the girl said, her voice lilting with new youth. “This stuff, oh, ah, heeeyy! Oh, I sound fabulous.”
Lilith stepped closer. The three well-dressed ones came to their feet. In a few minutes, they had shed years. It was the most unholy and revolting thing she had seen in all of her time on Earth.
She reached down and picked up the boy, who at once began struggling, his voice echoing in the filthy room. With a single, quick movement, she sucked him completely dry. Her action made no noise, but the speed with which his tissues dried out created a sound like the ripping of paper. The remnant sank down in the now-floppy clothing. She crushed it beneath her feet and went for the others.
They ran, their voices pealing out incoherent, shrieked babble. Never mind, they would not escape her. She raced forward, following them up a staircase and along a corridor, then up another, narrower stair.
At the top a door opened into a room lined with containers upon which were painted images of various human foods. She was running fast now, just dimly aware of passing through another room, lighted, very hot, in which there were bubbling cauldrons and men in tall white hats. But they were not cooking the flesh of Keepers. This was all ordinary human food, she could smell it.
She grabbed the female by the neck, staggered, and was carried forward by momentum through a door that swung back on itself by some uncanny means.
Human beings were everywhere. Dozens of them sat around low tables arranged with foods. Her three victims raced out into this crowd, tumbling tables and shouting. Surprise froze her. What was this place? She could not stand against so many. They were bound to kill her, and in just moments.
She turned to go back the way she had come, but the creatures in white were coming out of the swinging door carrying axes. Now she felt a shudder of fear. Was she to be trapped here? Was she to end up in one of their shameful, hidden pots?
With a snarl of rage, she dashed on, using her strength to knock down any human who came near her. She rushed through another door, then along a dim hallway that opened into another wide, glittering room. This was a palace, certainly, and all these creatures must be rulers. No wonder they wanted youth. All rulers wanted youth.
In the mirrored walls she could see herself, and was surprised that she appeared radically different from the human females. The clothing she wore was covered with lace, and draped about her like some sort of robe. By contrast, their clothing was svelte and close to the body. She recalled that the dresses of the Englishwomen in Cairo two hundred years ago had looked as hers did. Apparently the humans had changed the way their clothing looked. She must not forget that.
Voices were rising, there were screams, there were howled words. One of the men in the blue clothing appeared. She darted into a door and found herself on a stone staircase. She ran up it, heard voices below. “Stop,” one of them cried.
She went through another door. This hallway was very quiet. She ran along it, trying doors. On each, there were Arabic numerals—457, 459, 461—and then 463 started to come open. She threw herself inside, pushing the creature within backward so hard that it slammed against the far wall. It slumped, rendered senseless.
She was in a room, not large, dominated by a flat couch. There was a window, behind which humans sat speaking. Strangely, they did not react to her presence, but merely continued talking as if she was not noticeable to them. “What’s more, we see only double-digit growth on the horizon,” one of the creatures said to her.
“Excuse me,” she replied in her awkward English. At least this one didn’t run away. She dashed through the only other door, and was delighted to find a water room like the one on the Seven Stars. She stopped, listened. Without, there was only the jabbering of the man in the window. She went to the creature she had stunned. It was a female, wearing the correct clothing. She lifted it and stripped it. The clothing was in three layers and many parts, not simple and elegant like her own linen and silk, not complicated with lace and tassels like this awful thing she was wearing.
She dropped it off, went to the window, and peered in. Still, the creatures did not see her. “Allo,” she said to them. They continued their droning. She touched the window. It was of a heavy glass. Also, they seemed much smaller than human beings ought to be. Finally, she took a cloth from the couch and covered it. This was some sort of spell-driven thing. Magic had run mad among the humans. Everything was magic, from the wagons that rolled by themselves, to the ship the size of a pyramid, to this strange enchanted glass.
She had learned on the ship the trick of the drawing of water, and in a moment had a wondrous lot of it coming down upon her. She opened her mouth into it, let it pour in. It tasted less of chemicals than the ship’s water, and she enjoyed its coolness and sweetness. She watched the waste curling down the drain.
After a time, she came out, taking down from the wall a length of what felt like cotton and wrapping herself with it. Phials of unguents and fragrant oils lay about, but when she attempted to anoint her breasts from one of them, it left a slick material that got bubbles in it if she swept her hands through it. Finally, she went in the water again, and was slowly covered with bubbles. More of the filth that caked her came off, much more. She got the phial and poured it over her, wiping herself with her hands until her whole body was anointed with the golden ichor that became white bubbles when alchemized into the water.
Now her skin was rosy, and she smelled again like a maiden. She took the cloth to her and held it against her breasts, and gazed upon her own face in the mirror that covered an entire wall of the chamber.
Off in the distance, she heard the surging roar of man’s works. Behind her, the people in the strange window jabbered continuously. The human creature remained stunned on the floor.
Looking at herself, Lilith saw that she was comely indeed, with her soft lips and bright eyes. The years, she thought, will not bow the mother of the world.
But loneliness might. She went into the other room, sat upon one of the thickly built chairs, bent her head upon her hand, and remained there in silence, alone in the vastness of a world that was hers no longer. As she sat, the weight of her feeding made her want to sleep. She lay back on the chair, listening to the drone of the hypnotized people in the window. A careful look at the woman she had knocked out revealed that she would not come to for some hours.
Lilith thought to kill her. But no, not now, she couldn’t eat again so soon, and the blood would go dead. She’d sleep a while and make room, then tuck the creature in. It was thin, it wouldn’t provide much blood.
Blood. She was an eater of blood. She didn’t really remember why. Or, really, even where she had come from…except for this word Eden, that meant land of grain.
She closed her eyes. Off in the distance of her mind, she saw stone cottages clustering under broad trees, and heard the grinding of the grain.
Once, she had been an eater of grain…she had been so young….
“We need one innocent enough to do it well,” he had said, the one they called the boy master.
Chapter Ten
Fast Walker
The only sound in the neat little apartment was the ticking of the wind-up alarm clock. Paul moved through the room, impressed with how his son had set the place up. Look at this neatly made bed, clean kitchen—he’d surely started out in good order. Maybe Paul shouldn’t have done what he’d done. But he had to have the boy back, there was just no other choice. Poor Ian had been so damn h
umiliated, and who could blame him? He knew that the drugs had been planted on him. But why, and by whom—those were things he would never know.
He unrolled the old map he had brought with him and tacked it to the wall. The pencil lines were a little faded, but still precise. It had been made many years ago by Charles Frater, one of his earliest team members. Given that Charlie had died creating this map, it should have been drafted in blood. As they had gone through the tunnel system, Charlie had worked out the details of every lair and run that he could find, assisted by what everybody considered Paul’s uncanny ability to see the vampires’ marks and signs.
When Charlie was killed, the Company had not offered a replacement. The Company never replaced anybody on Paul Ward’s team. Justin Turk, Briggsie’s predecessor, had put it pretty clearly: “We don’t kill people, Paul. Putting somebody on your project is a death sentence.”
“Goddammit!” They were damn well back, and he didn’t have shit to throw at them. Him and the woman he loved, and a few old guns. “Goddammit!”
If she got killed, he would feel like he’d killed her, and that would never change.
He looked at the East Side tunnels. One communicated with the ruins of the unfinished Second Avenue Subway. The other angled west, then went up Sixth Avenue. That one they had named “Condo Row” because of all the lairs that lay along it. Thirty-four of them, as Paul remembered. The New York vampires had reacted pretty much the same way—when threatened, they had rushed to protect their possessions. There had been all sorts of things down there—Renoirs and gold coins and clothing and rare books, jewelry and watches, you name it.
Condo Row, which paralleled and snaked beneath the Sixth Avenue IND, had numerous entrances into the subbasements of midtown hotels and restaurants. Paul had once come up and found himself in the coat room at “21.” Other passages ended in seemingly inappropriate places, until you understood that they’d been created during the Prohibition era to open into the newly created basement speakeasys. The vampires had found it convenient to steal people out of places where they weren’t supposed to be. One branch had even gone into the pantry of Billy Rose’s Horseshoe Club, now a disused ruin in the basement of the Royalton Hotel. During its lifetime, no fewer than fourteen missing persons had either last been seen at the Horseshoe Club or had attended the club around the time they disappeared.