Authors: Mick Farren
More Than Mortal (32 page)
“I wouldn’a ken.”
This was one time too many for Renquist. He stopped in his tracks ready to make a stand. “I think I need to speak to the Lord Fenrior about the accommodation. I’ll not be quartered at the bottom of a damned lake.”
Droon came as close as was possible to smiling. “Din’a fret, Master Renquist. Ye’ll be snug, dry, an’ warm. Ye ha’ m’ lord’s word on tha’.”
And indeed he did. Very shortly Droon made a right turn, and Renquist and the thralls followed him up two flights of stone steps. By the time they’d reached the top of the second flight, the feeling of damp and gloom was left beneath them. They moved down a corridor until Droon stopped outside a very old wooden door with heavy iron bolts and hinges. He opened it and then stepped back, allowing Renquist to enter. The room was much closer to Renquist’s expectations. Stone walls did a prison make, but at least the room they enclosed was fairly spacious, even though it lacked any kind of window and therefore tended to resemble a cave. It was a
suitable abode for the imprisoned aristocrat who had found himself on the losing side in a political intrigue and now awaited either a compromised release or execution, and the cell had probably been used quite regularly as such in times past. A smoky peat fire burned in a small grate, and the furniture, which must have been at least four hundred years old, was solidly and simply made.
suitable abode for the imprisoned aristocrat who had found himself on the losing side in a political intrigue and now awaited either a compromised release or execution, and the cell had probably been used quite regularly as such in times past. A smoky peat fire burned in a small grate, and the furniture, which must have been at least four hundred years old, was solidly and simply made.
While the thralls brought in his bag, Renquist looked around at what he hoped was his strictly temporary new home. The single attempt at decoration was a watercolor of Highland cattle, maybe ancestors of the ones he’d seen on the way there. He did notice, however, that a large Jacobean jug, filled to the brim with clear water, had been placed on the top of a stout dresser. Attention had been paid to detail, and someone in Fenrior had a detailed knowledge of his needs. Also a young woman, with the seemingly inevitable red hair and white freckled skin, lay on the room’s narrow bed covered only in a thin sheet, watching him with an anxious-to-please expression. He smiled at her and nodded. “And who might you be?”
“I’m Annie Munro, Master Renquist.”
“You know my name?”
Annie Munro laughed. “Bless ye, sir. There’s been talk o’ nothing else a’ night through th’ halls an’ kitchens.”
“And what’s your part in all this?”
“I’m t’ feed ye an’ provide wha’ other comfort I may.”
The house thralls had left the room, and Droon interrupted with a final word. “I’ll be goin’ th’ noo’, Master Renquist.”
“Thank you, Droon.”
“Aye.”
Droon made his exit, closing the door behind him. The sound of bolts being shot home and a key being turned in the lock were a clearly audible indication he might have Annie Munro to keep him company and provide
him with sustenance, but he was very definitely a prisoner. Renquist sat down on the bed next to Annie Munro. It had to be well past dawn outside, and he felt tired and depleted. “So you’re my welcoming gift, are you, Annie Munro?”
him with sustenance, but he was very definitely a prisoner. Renquist sat down on the bed next to Annie Munro. It had to be well past dawn outside, and he felt tired and depleted. “So you’re my welcoming gift, are you, Annie Munro?”
“Ye’re no t’ drain an’ kill me. Tha’s th’ laird’s only order.”
Prey that answered back. Renquist was amused. “Is it, now?”
“I’m darklost, an’ when th’ time comes, I’ll live forever.”
“And until then?”
“I hope an’ I serve.”
“You hope?”
“No’ all are Changed, Master Renquist. Many are called, but few are chosen. Thus we all try t’ be o’ service.” She treated him to the best depraved smile she could muster. “But wi’ one like ye th’ service willna’ be a chore.”
The greatest irony was that everything she said she believed to be true. The darklost could be single-minded. Those humans who had been brought partway into the nosferatu world but had yet to pass through the Change and achieve true, undead immortality, lived for nothing but the moment when they, too, became more than mortal. Annie Munro sincerely believed eternal life could be achieved by merit for ceaseless effort to please those she so admired and envied. Her mind was as naked as her body. A child without ego. She happily lusted after Renquist with frank and dirty innocence—quite unlike any other darklost he had encountered. She seemed well aware of the possibility Renquist might become carried away with his feeding, forget Fenrior’s directive, and drain and kill her, but she lived so entirely in the moment this scarcely seemed to bother her. He noted also how her living in the moment also protected her from the loitering yearning of most other darklost who had ever attached themselves to him. If anything, she reminded
Renquist of the San Francisco Manson girls of the late sixties, whom he and the late lamented Cynara had briefly encountered in Haight Ashbury in the so-called Summer of Love.
Renquist of the San Francisco Manson girls of the late sixties, whom he and the late lamented Cynara had briefly encountered in Haight Ashbury in the so-called Summer of Love.
He didn’t, however, fall into the very obvious trap of believing Annie Munro’s presence in his cell was as innocent and functional as her personality. She was Fenrior’s new watchdog now that Droon was gone, and as integral a part of his genteel incarceration as the stone walls or the bolted door. Annie was now the means of surveillance, although, insomuch as she would be keeping him amused, diverted, and nourished, she was infinitely preferable to an eye at a spyhole or any electronic device. Even in such diversions as they might engage, he would be providing his undead captor with at least minimally valuable information. His guard would be down, and unless he totally shunned Annie Munro, he’d be revealing himself with every move he had. A nosferatu can betray volumes about his personal depths if observed while feeding. In turn, though, Annie Munro’s mind would be showing him a great deal, especially about the Castle Fenrior, its social structure, its population, and the power dynamics of their lord’s control. Even his first glance into Annie Munro left him amazed and impressed by the brute sophistication and simple logic with which Fenrior’s realm of coexisting humans and nosferatu was made to function.
When Gallowglass had told him Fenrior was close to being regarded as a god, Renquist had assumed the statement contained a degree of exaggeration, or at least metaphor. Annie’s mind told him, in fact, it had been pretty much the unvarnished truth. Although she viewed the world with a certain servant cynicism, the girl believed that her lord was the very source of all life, both transitory and eternal. He also caused the rain to fall, the wind to blow, and the mist to roll in off the loch. The humans in both the castle and the village lived and died at his command, but by the same token, he could also,
on a whim, bring them to immortality. The thinking may have been simplistic, but it made as much primitive sense as any human religion, and as an added bonus for the few who were blessed, the immortality was absolutely genuine.
on a whim, bring them to immortality. The thinking may have been simplistic, but it made as much primitive sense as any human religion, and as an added bonus for the few who were blessed, the immortality was absolutely genuine.
Annie Munro may have been savvy and irreverent, but she, and seemingly all the other inhabitants of Fenrior, never questioned the basics. To their way of thinking, their god delivered. The laird gave and the laird took away on both the most basic and most elevated level. That was how it was, world without end. While the sun continued to come up in the morning, no sparks of revolution were ever kindled in the domain of the Lord Fenrior. Renquist had, of course, seen similar unquestioning devotion to a nosferatu lord, but not for at least two centuries, and never one so keyed into the complexity of the modern world—unless one counted Joseph Stalin, who was not strictly nosferatu, but a complete aberration unto himself. He also didn’t doubt Fenrior’s influence dug deep into the cutthroat politics of Scotland ancient and modern, and human puppets in both Edinburgh and Westminster danced to his orchestrated strings and enabled him to maintain so much in such secrecy.
Already, though, Renquist was reasonably convinced Fenrior had his weaknesses and insecurities, no matter how godlike he might appear. It was obvious Annie had been presented to him as a gift in his cell not only to monitor and feed him, but also to impress—and, indeed, Renquist was duly impressed. It was a fine point of hospitality. In addition, he was intrigued. That Fenrior would have a need to impress him told him a lot, but it also posed many questions. In addition, it provided some solid encouragement. A leader dazzled with his skill and cunning only those with whom he or she wanted to negotiate or maybe hoped to manipulate, definitely not with an individual slated for destuction. The kind of megalomaniac who needed to explain his master plan for world domination before cutting James Bond in half
with a laser was strictly a product of the need for exposition in romantic fiction. In reality, enemies were reduced to carrion without benefit of any self-congratulatory denouement.
with a laser was strictly a product of the need for exposition in romantic fiction. In reality, enemies were reduced to carrion without benefit of any self-congratulatory denouement.
Renquist would have liked to delve deeper into the organizational structure of Fenrior’s domain. He was already fascinated by roles played by darklost like Droon and Annie, and how the laird seemed to maintain them as a servant class, manipulating their desire for the Changing to use them as a buffer against the rank and file humans of the village. To really explore the nuts and bolts, however, he would have to put Annie Munro out completely before he could seriously hunt around in her memory and subconscious, and his innate sense of nosferatu manners told him this would be extremely bad form. The girl had not been given to him to immediately be rendered unconscious and mind-stripped. To do so would also be incredibly stupid, and it would be bound to trigger some kind of investigation. At worst, the result could be a change of venue for his confinement. Thoughts returned of dripping dungeons and the damp in the corridors below. He looked around at the relative creature comfort of the cell. He had best hang on to what he’d already got, relax as best he could with the warm and spluttering fire and the equally warm young woman, and count himself lucky until the next revelation.
“Y’ must be famished after such a journey. They say you came all th’ way from th’ bottom o’ England.” Annie Munro was looking at him with a calculated flirtatiousness, and it was enough to divert his attention from her mind. Renquist might have become a pedantic and investigative adventurer over the centuries, but he was also predator flesh, and those needs must still be served. “You give of yourself freely?”
Annie Munro smiled. “It’s my pleasure.”
She knelt up on the bed and raised a bare arm. Renquist took her hand and saw previous bite marks. Poor ravaged Annie. Would she ever achieve the immortality
she so craved? He looked her directly in the eyes. Although it was not a thing he would have done himself, he was quite convinced the Lord Fenrior would be watching him feed through those selfsame eyes. Was he expected to provide the lord with a telling dance of neardeath? Renquist half smiled. So damn you, Fenrior. Observe this, you undead autocratic Peeping Tom.
she so craved? He looked her directly in the eyes. Although it was not a thing he would have done himself, he was quite convinced the Lord Fenrior would be watching him feed through those selfsame eyes. Was he expected to provide the lord with a telling dance of neardeath? Renquist half smiled. So damn you, Fenrior. Observe this, you undead autocratic Peeping Tom.
Marieko slowly hung up the phone.
Destry and Columbine both moved on her. “Well?”
“They will call us back.”
“What?”
“It turned out I was talking with Dahlia, the one who looks like a child. She used a great deal of profanity. She said she or one of the others would call us back.”
Columbine seemed to blame Marieko for the lack of an immediate resolution to the problem. “Did she say when?”
“When they’ve discussed the situation among themselves and contacted other informed sources.”
“Informed sources?”
“They’re checking us out. Probably as we speak.”
“Checking us out?”
Destry looked wearily at Columbine. Sleep seemed to be becoming a premium luxury. “Get real, will you? Their master comes to visit us, and then, after two or three days, we call up and tell them we’ve lost him. What would you do?”
Columbine looked away. “I’d check us out.”
“Exactly.”
“So we continue to wait?”
Neither Destry nor Marieko seemed to feel the question merited an answer.
The game Annie Munro was playing became immediately clear. That Renquist would take her blood was a given. The scenario, though, could play out in one of two ways. He could take it from unthinking necessity,
with no more than a physical contact with the prey—or while he fed, he could, at the same time, conjure raging and contorting ecstasies for her as a hallucinatory diversion from the essentially clinical procedure. Aside from wanting to serve her lord and win supposed points toward her eventual immortality, Annie Munro also craved such ecstasies with the passion of a true addict, and Renquist saw no reason why she shouldn’t have her enjoyment at the same time as he had his. At the very least, it seemed only fair. The fact also remained that Fenrior or some of his people might be watching. Why not let them see him as courteous and debonair, a gentleman vampire willing to permit the victim to have her fun? Better that than to be viewed as a greedy and selfish boor with consideration for nothing beyond his own wallowing gratification.
with no more than a physical contact with the prey—or while he fed, he could, at the same time, conjure raging and contorting ecstasies for her as a hallucinatory diversion from the essentially clinical procedure. Aside from wanting to serve her lord and win supposed points toward her eventual immortality, Annie Munro also craved such ecstasies with the passion of a true addict, and Renquist saw no reason why she shouldn’t have her enjoyment at the same time as he had his. At the very least, it seemed only fair. The fact also remained that Fenrior or some of his people might be watching. Why not let them see him as courteous and debonair, a gentleman vampire willing to permit the victim to have her fun? Better that than to be viewed as a greedy and selfish boor with consideration for nothing beyond his own wallowing gratification.
Although he was resigned to being observed, the idea still didn’t sit particularly well with Renquist. Since the time humanity had developed the motion picture, and then the video camera, he had, on a number of occasions, found himself being secretly filmed or recorded. Fortunately Renquist had always been able to fog photographic film and distort the images on magnetic tape, thwarting any possible visual chronicle of his most exclusive gratifications. Of course, those who’d tried had absolutely no idea just how exclusive Renquist’s gratifications really were. They were expecting sex, and believed themselves deprived of sex when the film returned from processing as nothing more than an abstract grey swirl pattern. Had the images survived, however, they would have found themselves with documentation far beyond petty pornography. Some, like the late but hardly lamented J. Edgar Hoover (not to deny the FBI director’s capacity for masturbatory voyeurism) commissioned this kind of sexual keyhole work primarily to extend their power base of triumph-through-blackmail. Others did it for their own unabashed amusement.
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