Blood and Chrysanthemums (10 page)

Ardeth’s foot hit a beer bottle, knocked it into a silent fall to the carpet. Liquid dripped onto the dirty fabric.

She moved her foot and shifted her position against the couch, eyes on the television screen. A music video flickered there, the thin, bare-chested young men whipping their long hair about as they flailed away at guitars. The sound was turned down low, reduced to the thump of bass and drums and the mosquito whine of the singer’s voice.

She contemplated changing the station, then decided she would never find the remote control in the jumble of newspapers, books and empty beer bottles on the floor. Instead, she picked up the kitchen knife resting on top of the pizza box by her side and turned it over in her hands. The remains of dried tomato sauce looked like blood. The thought made her smile thinly.

It was not working.

Maybe if she tried harder, she told herself. Maybe if you stopped being so cautious. Just walk into the history department and announce that you’re back. Make up some story about a nervous breakdown. They’d buy that—it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened to a doctoral student. You can make the police buy it too, if you do it right.

She had planned it all out, during the long nights of travelling since her conversation with Kate Butler. She could move back into her apartment permanently, after Sara found somewhere else to live of course. She could finish her Ph.D. She could teach. She could find the blood she needed from street people and students, from careful seductions and midnight visits. It was manageable. It could be done. She could have her old life back.

Except that it wasn’t working.

Even after four nights, she still felt like an alien walking through the campus. There was no comforting familiarity about the buildings. The people looked terrifyingly young, clothes in fashions she did not recognize, talking a language that seemed suddenly foreign to her. She saw no one that she knew, and, held back by fear of committing herself irrevocably, she did not try to find them.

Would that make it real? If she found Carla and Peter or any of her friends from the days when this had been her world? Once the round of questions and answers was over, would she feel as though she belonged again?

Something stirred at her shoulder. She glanced back at the boy sprawled on the couch.

She had crawled through the window into the ground-floor room half an hour ago, drawn by the blue light of the television falling through the half-open window. At three in the morning, even the fraternity houses were quiet. As she’d hovered by the windowsill, she’d heard the hallway floor creak once, then a distant rush of water through the pipes. After the soft pad of footsteps returning, there had been silence.

The room smelt of stale beer, pizza, marijuana. The boy had been indulging in all of the above. He lay on his back on the couch, fully dressed except for one running shoe that he had somehow kicked off before he fell asleep. Ardeth had crouched by his side for a long moment, watching the rise and fall of his chest beneath the worn T-shirt. Then she had brushed aside his long, dark hair and bent her head to his throat. He had made a soft sound as her teeth slid into his flesh and one hand lifted, as if to touch her, then fell away again.

Then she had heard her own, terrible moan and pulled herself away to sit and stare at his forgotten television in the dark stillness.

Looking at him now, the exposed line of his throat bracketed by the sharp point of his collarbone at one end and the glitter of a gold stud in his earlobe at the other, she felt the hunger return. His blood has tasted hot and sweet, like drinking wine after months of water, like tasting spice after years of ash.

He moved again, taking a soft, grunting breath, and turned onto his side. One arm slipped over the edge of the couch, leaving his hand to dangle bonelessly. Ardeth put one finger out to touch the vein in his wrist.

I had forgotten how good it was, she thought distantly. I had forgotten how easy it was. Did we truly believe we could give this up?

She found his pulse: slow, steady, unchanging. This wasn’t really the way she had planned it. This was not the glorious revenge she had imagined—she hadn’t been able to manage even that. This boy was not substitute for Mark . . . but she had needed sustenance and there were no animals in the city. I wonder what he is doing now? she thought and tried to make herself believe that it was Mark she meant.

The pain surged back suddenly, along with the memories. Rozokov in the asylum, kissing her throat through the bars that held them apart. The night they had found each other on the Toronto streets again, his arms opening silently to welcome her. His voice as he promised her that they could find a way to be more than the things the word “vampire” had come to mean. The cold line of his profile as he turned all the promises into ashes.

For a moment the ache was more than she could bear, so she drowned it the only way she knew how, as her mortal self might have washed it away with wine, as another might have dreamed it away with drugs. The boy, still held in the grip of his own choice of painkillers, shook and groaned beneath her.

Finally, she pushed herself away and sat back, her hands rising to cover her mouth, to hold in something that felt terrifyingly like a sob.

She found her way to the window and out it, leaving the boy, unconscious and unknowing, on the couch.

She found her way to her old apartment, walking the silent streets without seeing them.

And on the steps of the apartment building, she found someone waiting for her.

The woman stood on the broad stone porch, shadowed by the columns that supported the overhang of the doorway. Ardeth had seen her climb out of the car parked on the street and walk towards the apartment building. Automatically, she had hung back a little, to give the woman plenty of time to get to her own apartment before Ardeth entered the building.

But here she was, waiting as Ardeth climbed the stairs of the old mansion that had been converted into condominiums during the city’s real estate boom. It’s nothing to do with me, Ardeth told herself covertly noting the woman’s sombre clothing, the brown circle of her face beneath the black hair. She’s forgotten her key or she’s waiting for someone to come down and get her. She made herself give a neutral nod as she reached for the door.

“Good morning, Ms. Alexander.”

Ardeth froze, hand still on the door pull, then turned her head slowly. “I’m sorry. You must have confused me with someone else,” she said, the lie automatic.

“No. You are Ardeth Alexander. Please do not be alarmed. I am not here to . . .” she paused, as if decided on a proper word, “harm you in any fashion.”

Ardeth did not let go of the door. Her senses strained, struggling to determine if the woman was alone of if others waited in the shadows around them. If they don’t know about the ultrasound, I’m safe, she told herself desperately. If they don’t know that, they can’t take me. If they don’t know about the weapon that had kept Rozokov mad with pain, that had almost killed her . . . she fought back the memory of the pain in her head, tumbling her into helpless anguish. But the woman seemed to be alone and for a moment, Ardeth felt more confident. Then she realized that that might have more frightening consequences than any other scenario. If she is here with me, alone, in the middle of the night, she is
not
afraid.

“How do you know my name?” she asked at last, deciding it would be better to concede and discover what the woman wanted than to drag out the process by pretending.

“Dr. Takara was good enough to tell my employer about you. He sent me here to find your sister, who lied most convincingly she had not seen you in months and that you were probably dead.”

“What do you want?”

“My employer would like to meet you. And he would like to know where to find Dimitri Rozokov.”

“Who is your employer?”

“His name is Sadamori Fujiwara. He is one of you.”

“One of what?”

“Those who died and did not die. A vampire.”

Shaking, Ardeth let the door fall away and took a step forward. Calm black eyes met hers. Ardeth put her hand out and touched the other woman’s shoulder, and closed cold fingers hard over cloth and flesh and bone. “Prove it,” she said at last.

The apartment was dark when Ardeth opened the door and stepped aside to let Akiko Kodama enter. By the time she had started dialling the telephone, Sara had emerged from the bedroom, squint-eyed and wrapped in a faded flannel robe. She saw Akiko and her eyes widened. Ardeth’s gesture cut off her question as, across continent, a sleep voice answered the phone.

“Lisa Takara?”

“Yes.”

“This is Ardeth Alexander.” There was a long silence.

“What do you want?’

“Did you tell a man named Sadamori Fujiwara about me?” Ardeth held her indrawn breath.

“Yes,” Lisa acknowledged, after a moment.”

“Why?”

“Because he persuaded me he had a good reason for wanting to know. Because he’s one . . . of your blood.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Ms. Alexander. Yes, I am sure.” Ardeth wondered how she could be so certain and remembered the quiet scientist who had risked her own life, who had turned against her captors to help the vampires she was supposed to be studying. That woman would have demanded the only kind of proof that mattered. “How did you get my number?”

“His assistant gave it to me,” Ardeth answered, momentarily bewildered, then recognizing the carefully concealed fear behind the question. “I’ll rip it up now.”

“Thank you. Goodbye, Ms. Alexander.” There was no mistaking the finality in the tone.

“Goodbye, Dr. Takara.”

Ardeth set the phone down and turned to look at Akiko, Sara hovering beyond her, Mickey leaning on the edge of the door to the bedroom. “What does he want?” she asked at last. Akiko shrugged a little.

“I do not know for certain. Only that he is very old and says he wishes to meet those of his kind.”

“What if I’m not interested?”

“I will tell him that.”

“Tell him,” she paused, for a moment torn and tempted by the promise of companionship. But then she remembered Rozokov’s promises and her own, that they broke or bent far too soon. “Tell him that we’re solitary creatures. I’m not interested in meeting any more vampires.” Before she turned away, he saw Akiko bow slightly with calm politeness, as if her voice had not been bitter enough to bruise.

“If you wish. But please tell me where I can find Dimitri Rozokov.”

“Why should I do that?”

“In case his choice is different from your own.”

It would be easy to refuse. It would probably be wiser to refuse. She had only Akiko’s word that this strange vampire meant them no harm. And it was Rozokov who had defined their solitary state. If he didn’t want her, why would he want any other vampire? Could she bear if it he did?

“Banff,” she said at last, taking savage pleasure in the pain while she told herself that it was the final severing, the ultimate way to put them on two different paths. “He’s in Banff.”

He woke alone in the bedroom, his mind full of jumbled memories: iron bars and pain, a vein pulsing beneath his mouth, the taste of blood in his throat.

Dreaming. I was dreaming, Rozokov thought slowly. It was not something he did very often. Or, at least, that he could remember. He had been dreaming about the asylum and the time of madness before Ardeth had come. He had been dreaming about Ardeth as she had been, a terrified but resolute young woman putting her hand through the bars of a cell to let him drink her blood.

He sighed and opened his eyes, staring at the slanted ceiling above his head. It is only in dreams that you can have her back that way, he told himself bleakly. You killed the mortal in her when you made her into a vampire. Perhaps that is the true curse of the vampire—we destroy what we love by turning into ourselves.

He sat up slowly, feeling the first stirrings of hunger.

Perhaps he should hunt in town tonight. There were women in this place besides the forgetful doctor. He could go to one of the bars and one would come to him, a lonely local or an adventurous tourist. Ardeth was gone. There was no reason he had to restrict his feeding to elk any more.

Rozokov sat at the edge of the bed and rested his head in his hands, knowing he should resist the weariness settling into his bones. Unless he forced himself, he would do what he always did. If the night was clear, he would go to the observatory. If it was not, he would stay in the apartment and read the complex, baffling theories of the new world’s science. However the evening began, it would end in the woods, with animal blood thin and unsatisfying in his throat.

Finally, he got to his feet and went to part the thick curtains a little, to gauge the night’s activities by the state of the night sky. He had slept late again and full night lay on the town. Above him, the stars glittered with cold mockery.

He dressed without turning on the light, then went to the living room, pausing to run his hand over his hair and shrug on his long coat before he reached the door.

He stood at the tiny landing for a moment. The observatory would be waiting, easy and uncomplicated. To decide to go there was hardly a decision at all.

Look what happened the last time you made a decision, a voice inside him mocked. You drove her away.

No, he told himself. She went. I offered her the choice to stay and she went. With her, she took away the questions and restrictions. The least that you can now do is make use of your freedom.

That thought seemed to be decision enough. When he reached the street, he walked towards Banff Avenue instead of the observatory.

The stored were still open, along with the coffee shops and restaurants. He paused in the doorway of one bar but the noise was too much for him and he moved on, watching the thin crowed of tourists drift along the street. At last, the bookstore drew him in and he let it. He wandered among the shelves, allowing his eye to be drawn by a cover or a title. The books had reassuring solidity in his hands. Even their smell was comforting.

He was standing at the science section, contemplating whether he should expand his studies to include the new frontiers of computerization and artificial intelligence, when something bumped against him. He turned to meet two pairs of dark eyes.

Feminine voices muttered apologies in a language he did not understand. He noticed the black silk of their hair, the white flicker of their smiles. “It is all right. I am quite undamaged.” Are they sisters? he wondered as they spoke again and lashes swept tawny cheeks in unison. For a dizzying moment, he felt the pulse of their blood, not in unison at all, but staggered so that it seemed a steady roar in his mind.

He realized quite suddenly that they were flirting with him.

It would be simple. It would require none of the careful words, the charade of promises and lies that would be needed in one of the local bars. They believed the language barrier kept them safe, allowed them this brief moment of excitement or amusement in a public place. That barrier made no difference at all to him; he had learned long ago that the power of his will transcended the spoken word. All he had to do was exert that will and they could be his.

He thought of kissing their pale pink mouths, of finding the veins beneath the delicate skin of their throats.

But . . . 

It would still be work. He would have to use considerable mental strength to soothe and coax them. He would have to find some private place to go to take advantage of their compliance. He would have to blot the memory of the encounter from their minds.

When he put his face against the glossy black satin of their hair, he would have to keep himself from imagining it was Ardeth’s.

He smiled with careful, deliberate menace. Flushed cheeks blanched, smiles faded. Then they were gone, backs straight in dignified retreat.

Rozokov looked down blindly at the book in his hand and returned it to the shelf. So this was freedom, he thought bitterly. Surely in this town there must be someone who would not remind him of her. There must be women who had nothing of her in their smiles, whose skin would not feel like hers, whose mouths would not taste like hers. If he could not find a woman, then there must certainly be a man who would not remind him of her. But the men of this town were too much alike. They would make him think of the climber and then he would be back where he began. If there was a mortal who would not be only her substitute, he admitted, he would not find one tonight.

When he went back out onto the street, the clouds had moved in, covering the stars. With a sigh, he headed back towards the apartment.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he realized that there was something sitting on the landing. He stared down at it in bewilderment for a moment before his head came up and surveyed the quiet, empty alley. He could sense no life out there, no awareness studying him from some hidden spot. Carefully, he bent to pick up the small package and hurried into the apartment.

Switching on the light, he sat down and turned the strange gift in his hands for a long moment. The wrapping paper was thin and delicate, patterned with white flowers and the elegant forms of cranes. Beneath it, he could feel the shape of a book.

Could it be from Ardeth? Had she returned and left this as a peace offering between them? But that did not seem her way somehow.

Perhaps that climber, Mark Frye. Had he left this as a gift for Ardeth, hoping that she had returned? But if he had, one would have supposed he would have addressed it to her in some fashion, knowing that she did not live alone.

There was only one way to find out, of course. He would have to remove the paper and open the book. He could do that, surely. It would require no great resolve, no terrifying commitment, no choice of right or wrong.

He felt the prick of detached self-disgust and tore the paper, the material ripping easily beneath his fingers. The book itself was surprisingly sturdy, bound in dark leather that he knew was older than it appeared. In the centre of the cover, a crest of stylized flowers had been embossed.

Curious, Rozokov opened the book. The paper inside was thin and brown with age. The writing began on the third page; a spidery scratching that made strange yet beautiful forms of some of the letters. Though it did not look as if it should be, the writing was in English.

The Lady of the Autumn Moon . . . 

The night forgotten, his coat still wrapped around him, Rozokov began to read.