The Vampires

  In the dining hall the elaborately set table of food was intact.

  “Father!” Valerie rushed to the priest, as if for protection from something undefined.

  The priest was holding a branch in his hand.

  The girl looked at it.

  “It’s a branch of wild rose,” he said, and gave it to her. “I found it outside.” He moved closer to Valerie, and to her brother—as if they must begin to choose sides in a terrible game.

  “There’s a superstition about wild roses on the mainland,” Tarah said. “They ward off vampires.”

  “There’s no such thing,” Paul said.

  The priest smiled, deliberately to veil the harshness of his next words: “There’s evil that procreates evil, it lives on the symbolic blood of others; as red as— . . .”

  “Blood isn’t red,” said Blue. “After a while it becomes almost black.” Soundlessly, he had entered the room. He brushed one unruly lock of hair from his forehead. He shrugged his shoulders. A smile assaulted the moody face.

  “Blood is filthy,” Savannah said.

  “It’s the color of old roses,” Karen said. She leaned slightly on Bravo as they descended the stairs.

  The priest thought: Blood can color a whole world.

  “I hate even the thought of blood!” Valerie’s mind burst in a shatter of red.

  Paul studied each of the people here. Suddenly the world was on display. A kaleidoscope changing in flashes of violent colors, shapes.

  Looking at her brother, Valerie saw the glimpse of a stranger.

  “Blood will have no color,” Tarah said ambiguously. She saw Mark upstairs looking down at them.

  Now Tarah left the domed hall. As if to pry its meaning, she returned to the room where the stage waited.

  “Why did you come back?”

  Tarah froze at the question.

  Mark had asked it.

  She regained control immediately. “Because I have to discover again how utterly I hate your father.”

  Mark stood on the platform of the stage, touching the chairlike prop. He sat on it, over the black cover draping it. Now he leaned back. He extended his hand, like a king in command.

  “Will my half-brother be here?” he asked her.

  “Of course not,” she said. Their eyes locked.

  Mark asked her, “How old is Gable?”

  “Eighteen,” Tarah said.

  “The same age as the twins,” Mark said. The words were like the swift lunge of a sure knife, withdrawn quickly: “Do you really hate my father?”

  “With a hatred like love. It has to be replenished,” Tarah said.

  ‘‘You hate him because of the two men?”

  “How the hell do you know?” (Richard opened the door; and the two stood there already naked; she walked toward them, to her prolonged sexual execution, she knew. The closed door stopped the shaft of light that had pointed her way like a sword into the womb of the darkness.)

  Suddenly, looking at Mark, Tarah did not see a child at all. She saw: Richard. Richard as he had looked that savage night that confounded reality. Beautiful. Cold. . . . Anger, murderous fury, clenched her fists as it had that night: She walked in, she turned, once, to look at Richard, hoping he would relent.

  To contain the spilling anger, Tarah closed her eyes. Gable. The anger ebbed. He had Escaped Richard and this terrible island.

  Mark jumped off the chair, the platform. He stretched his lithe body.

  Tarah watched him move away from her. What did she feel toward him? An extension of Richard; did she hate him too?

  Mark had left the room.

  Again he stood at the top of the stairs. Again he looked down at the others in the domed hall. Then he walked quickly along the golden corridors. At the end of the wing, he opened a door, not knocking, knowing it would be open.

  Her body covered only by the purple robe, Joja lay in bed. Her red hair fanned on the pillow. She heard the door close. Eyes shut, she said: “Richard?”

  There was no answer.

  “Mark,” she said. This time it was not a question.

  Mark advanced toward the bed, over the woman.

  Through the window the sun was yellow, soon to turn orange in the late afternoon.

  “Why did you ask your father to invite me?” Joja’s lips asked.

  The boy lay on the enormous bed.

  “I slept with you and my father once,” he said. “I was naked. And so were you and he.”

  Joja’s eyes opened into the exposed round mirror over the bed, as if she dare not face the boy directly.

  “Like this,” Mark said. He removed the trunks.

  She saw the reflection of his exorbitant body—the white patch at the middle, sheltered from the sun; the dark triangle of hair between his legs enclosing the powerful groin. Her throat choked with longing.

  “And you were naked too,” he said.

  As if her mind had separated itself from her body, one reacting independently of the other, Joja’s hands opened the purple robe. Yet her mind cried: Don’t! It was an alert—a warning which had nothing to do with the fact that Mark was a boy. No, because suddenly for her he was not. Rather, it was a warning that announced a fear of exposing herself to him—as if it were she who were capable of being corrupted by him.

  “And you held me,” Mark said. “I lay between you and my father. You both held me.” His voice was soft and hypnotic, mesmerizing—like the beating of the water earlier, the flapping of wings: soft and subdued: rhythmic: yet it commanded.

  Then she felt Mark’s lips barely touching her neck. To Joja it was suddenly as if he had bent to kiss the imprint of his father’s bite.

  Malissa lay on her bed, fully clothed as if prepared to rise quickly in any eventuality. Her hands guarded her. “That pitiful Albert—to challenge me,” she said to la Duquesa; la Duquesa had just finished arranging Malissa’s clothes. The words were clearly an implied warning to the queen in black mourning.

  Malissa’s eyes closed. But the blue bubbled glasses on the ageless face seemed to remain watching, alert.

  Leaving the room quietly, la Duquesa crossed the hallway, knocked softly but urgently at Albert’s door—and entered the open room hurriedly before there was an answer.

  “Your grace!’’

  She cautioned him with a black-nailed finger. She closed the door. “She’s asleep,” she said. Then quickly, as if to verbalize an unspoken alliance: “Why do you put up with her?”

  “Because— . . .” He closed his mouth tightly: He would clearly not answer, not now.

  “Which one do you want?” la Duquesa asked him hurriedly.

  “I don’t understand, your grace.”

  “Tor—Topaze—Rev— . . .”

  “You can arrange it?”

  “Of course. I’m a superb, convincing actress.” Then: less sure: “I can try. . . . I think I can get Tor for you. I don’t trust the others— . . .” She was already at the door.

  “Your grace, why are you exposing yourself to Malissa’s anger for me?” Albert asked.

  “Because the Duke despised cruelty,” la Duquesa said. “He would want me to do this. . . . Often—on rainy afternoons when we made love all day—often he would say that there is nothing sadder than love and desire which pine without fulfillment.”

  Suddenly there was the loud, unmistakable whirring of the helicopter, descending outside.

  “It’ll wake her!” Albert said frantically. His hands clutched in terror at his fleshy throat.

  The loud whirring of the helicopter continued. It had begun slowly in the distance like the flapping of wings.

  Mark heard it instantly. He stood up from the bed in Joja’s room. “My father is here!” He put on his trunks.

  At the door, he looked back at her. A hint of a promise, long extended, still to be kept?

  The recurring rage flowed suddenly into anticipation within Joja. Richard is here!

  She dressed hurriedly and left the room quickly.

  Mark mov
ed along the mirrored halls. He met Malissa coming out of her room.

  Richard is here!

  The entourage rushed with her, followed by Albert and la Duquesa.

  Richard is here!

  Downstairs, the others were aware of the loud whirring of the helicopter, and of the excitement seizing the house totally.

  Tarah knew: Richard is here! Deliberately she gathered all the anger within her, to conquer a vague, sensual, disturbing anticipation.

  The fiery water surrounding the island pulled the sun’s reflection into its depths.

  Now they were all in the enormous hall.

  Richard is here!

  The glass eye of the arched dome, freezing the sky, glared down at them. From above, the vitreous black and white floor seemed to contain them all within a vortex.

  Mark stood on the stairs, Malissa beside him. They all stared toward the white rotunda of columns through which Richard would enter. Mark’s clear eyes were red in the fierce light of the late afternoon.

  “My father is here,” he said.

  Part II

  9

  A black man and a black woman preceded Richard into the house.

  “The papaloi and the mamaloi.” Mark recognized the voodoo highpriests from the mainland.

  Breasts bared dark as grapes, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, amulets, rings thrusting angry stabs of twisted, mottled light about her, the black woman was lithe, her eyes hard blue diamonds locked in coal. Beside her, the man was tall. His shirtless muscular body shone like glossy iron. Crystalline blue, his eyes, like hers, seemed to open into a deep vacuity. Their torsos were painted in shrieking swirls of color.

  Behind the blue shield of her glasses, Malissa’s eyes smiled.

  And then Richard was there.

  In a white suit and a deep, deep-blue shirt, he stood under the orange light of the fallen sun which still grasped at the island through the arched dome. Tall, slender, spectacularly handsome, clear irises dark rimmed, set in a deeply tanned angular face—eyes which were like the depths of clearest water, at the bottom of which is a film of black—a face as composed as black crystal—he glanced at each of his guests, recognizing each quickly, even those he had not met before. But his eyes moved swiftly from face to face, searching out one. The arc of his sight paused on Valerie. Then it extended to include Paul.

  Malissa captured each swift reaction.

  Still holding the branch of wild rose which the priest had given her, Valerie looked away immediately, from Richard to her brother. Her fierce eyes called urgently to the face which gazed fascinated at Richard. Paul felt his sister’s hand on his arm, a warm current rushed at him. He looked quizzically at his sister, and touched his lips in a vague gesture.

  Malissa shattered the stunned silence. “A splendid, dazzling entrance, Richard!” she congratulated. The rubied fingers were extended toward him, but clearly neither she nor Richard would touch.

  “Malissa,” Richard acknowledged.

  “And the entourage!” Malissa indicated with a dazzling sweep of her hand. “Topaze! La Duquesa! Tor! Rev!” She flung the names swiftly to clear away the irrelevance of superficial identity.

  Topaze removed his cavalier’s hat and sliced the air elegantly in a deep bow before Richard.

  “I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting,” Richard said to his guests. His voice was like black velvet. Mark descended the stairs and stood beside his father.

  “Karen . . . Joja . . . Tarah . . . you look lovelier than ever.” Richard began acknowledging his guests. “Karen.” His lips hardly brushed her cheek.

  The shimmering blackness Richard exuded: It enveloped Karen like a black cowl. She felt a resurgence of life, a tide. “Richard!” Even her voice had a new strength.

  Bravo’s eyes focused on Richard like the telescope of a deadly gun. As if she would extend her hand to him in greeting, she held out, instead, abruptly, the butt of her whip.

  His smile accepted her silent challenge. He glanced at Karen—naming the stakes in the conflict? Bravo’s firm grasp on her shoulders claimed Karen.

  Staring vacantly like zombies, the mamaloi and the papaloi flanked the sweep of stairs, like guards. To Tor, their objectless gaze reflected his. (He saw: Eyes on oiled bodies.)

  “Joja.” Again, Richard’s lips barely touched the actress’s cheek.

  The intervening years since she had seen him, suddenly they rushed together, fused, evaporated: The only reality remained the brief past with him, the immediate present now: only Richard. “Richard,” she said. And she thought feverishly: He’s the only one who can resurrect me from the feeling of being dead. But her eyes shifted toward Mark, to include him too. Then back to Richard. Father. Son. Together? Apart? She touched the scar on her neck, kissed by Mark moments earlier, made by Richard years ago. Her soul whispered: Richard. (An impression: Darkness, darkness!)

  Abruptly Tarah withdrew as Richard approached her, to touch her cheek too with his lips. Even so, she felt herself drawn into his eyes: the black depths beneath the mirror clarity. Even as she felt hatred scorch her flesh with a paradoxical coldness—and her mind was thrust violently into the past: against the memory of sexual slaughter—she had the sensation that her body had opened to welcome him. No. “Richard.” She pronounced his name like a sentence of doom.

  That handsome, yes, that beautiful. La Duquesa remembered the Duke. Yes, like that, like Richard.

  “Your grace,” he acknowledged her.

  She touched her veil as if to assert its reality.

  To gather support from her allegiance, Albert stood near the queen; he stared in awe at Richard, who spoke his name in greeting. Malissa’s equal, the only equal she acknowledged, Albert knew. And feared? No, Malissa feared no one.

  Richard, Malissa. Rev was aware of two powerful currents of stunning power: Poised. He lifted his knife in introduction to Richard. It could have been an offering.

  “Savannah.”

  The mere utterance of her name by Richard seemed to contain the hint of the revelation of a secret. A mirror! Savannah searched for her own reflection—as if for something to hold onto within a spiraling sea. A mirror! Her eyes riveted toward the base of a giant lamp. Its mirrored surface, a series of concave hollows, distorted her beauty grotesquely. It pulled it apart.

  “Blue, you came,” said Richard, seeing the youngman for the first time.

  Blue nodded. Had he seen Richard before? In a drugged hallucinated haze? A face, beautiful and powerful, not to be forgotten: appearing within hungry orange flames which did not touch it. . . . Blue’s flung glance directed Richard’s eyes toward his ankle. Richard acknowledged it.

  Now his eyes locked with the priest’s. “And the archbishop?” Richard inquired.

  “He sends his bless— . . . his greetings,” Jeremy said.

  Then Richard’s look returned to Valerie. It penetrated the beautiful façade, it studied it relentlessly. Then he smiled down at the branch of wild rose. “Valerie,” he said softly. He embraced her. She accepted his arms passively. When he withdrew, she stared down at the wild rose: crushed by Richard’s tight embrace. The petals clung to her breast like caked blood. She clenched them within a fist.

  Now Richard embraced Paul. “Richard,” Paul breathed.

  When she saw Richard and Paul touch, Tarah turned away. To save Paul—to strike before— . . . ! About to fuse into one, her thoughts dissolved before they formed.

  Malissa clutched at the air as if to bring down the silence. The rubies blazed insanely on her fingers. “Enough of greetings and introductions!” she said peremptorily. “If we become bored— . . . !” she uttered the words of disaster. She demanded bluntly: “Richard, what will the entertainment be? We haven’t come for miles merely to see your fascinating island!”

  “What do you suggest, Malissa?” Richard asked her calmly.

  Of course she knew—and he knew—that the entertainment had been determined: There was the waiting stage. He was suggesting to her, then, merely a preliminar
y sortie. To keep time moving! To thwart the fatal boredom she had already warned of! “We could perform tableaux from the Tarot cards,” she announced cunningly.

  Eager to please, Topaze looked up at her. “Yes, yes, Miss Malissa!” he applauded.

  “Her occult bullshit!” Bravo dismissed with bored contempt.

  But Malissa’s black-ringed finger had become a weapon for slaughter in her momentary entertainment. It was already aimed at the priest: “Of course! The Father could be the Pope!” she named the fifth card of the major arcanum of the Tarot, the ancient cards of divination. “Possessed of the key of heaven!” she described the figure depicted in the card. Her voice changed sharply: “And the key to hell!” Her laughter was like ice thawing, freezing quickly again. “Or would that symbol be too obvious for the good Father?” she consulted Richard.

  “Perhaps the Hermit,” Richard offered the figure in the ninth card. It was as if he in turn were consulting the priest for his own choice.

  “Yes!” Malissa agreed.

  “The priest will represent the Hermit’s card in tableaux of the Tarot!” Topaze announced solemnly.

  (A confessional booth.) The priest understood the implied accusation. Had his world indeed narrowed through dual tunnels into a muted corner which allowed life in only through a tiny window—and even that window was screened? The Hermit—. . .

  “Perhaps he should be represented by the Falling Tower,” Mark casually named the sixteenth card of the Tarot. His eyes assumed the color of the changing sky cut into a circle by the dome; they deepened into purple. “The powerful tower ripped by lightning.” He smiled at his solemn words—yet his eyes, on the priest, conveyed a serious message.

  “The crumbling tower!” Malissa described the sixteenth card. “The headlong plummeting of the two figures: Two figures rent apart. Or is it one? A split man. The shattering of a false philosophy! Excellent, Mark!” she congratulated the boy. Yet: The nails of her hands turned inward into claws.