By Blood We Live Part 48

The beating of the wings is very loud now, drowning out even the heavy pulsing of the rain. It reverberates in my mind like a heartbeat, dimming sight, taste, touch, smell. It dominates me in a way I thought only my writing could.

My shutters are open wide. I am drenched by the rain, buffeted by the chill wind. I am buoyed up by them both. I tremble at the thought. I love.

I love. Those words a river of silver turning my bones hollow.

And now I lift my head to the place where last night the full moon rode calm and clear, a ghostly ideogram written upon the air, telling me that it is time for me to let go of all I know, to plunge inward toward the center of my heart. Six months have pa.s.sed and it is time.

I know. For now the enormous thrumming emanates from that spot. Beat-beat. Beat-beat. Beat-beat.

The heart-sound.

At last. There in the night, I see her face as she comes for me.

SUNRISE ON RUNNING WATER.

by Barbara Hambly.

Barbara Hambly is the bestselling author of dozens of books, including the vampire novels Those Who Hunt the Night, Traveling with the Dead, and Renfield. She has written many other novels as well, such as the popular Dragonsbane and its sequels, as well as media tie-in projects for Star Trek and Star Wars, and original non-genre novels of historical fiction, mystery, and romance. She is also the editor of the vampire anthology Sisters of the Night.

This story is about a vampire who is unfortunate enough to be on the t.i.tanic on that ship's maiden and only voyage. "The genesis of the story was simple logistics: the t.i.tanic loaded in dusk at Cherbourg, sank in darkness, and the rescue-boats made their appearance only minutes after full dawn," Hambly said. "If a vampire had been in one of the boats, he'd have been totally without powers-being upon running water (having shipped himself as Dracula did in a box of earth)-and would have been faced with the horrible choice of spontaneously auto-combusting at the first touch of sunlight, or dropping overboard in the deepest portion of the Atlantic ocean, to lie paralyzed upon the ocean floor-conscious and unable to either move or die-possibly forever."

The d.a.m.n ship was supposed to be unsinkable.

Do you think I'd have set foot on the wretched tub if it weren't?

I embarked at Cherbourg for a number of reasons, chief among them being that the t.i.tanic entered port from Southampton at sunset, and loaded in the dusk. I've never liked the thought of shipping myself in my coffin like a parcel, with the attendant risks of inquisitive customs-inspectors, moronic baggage-handlers, and all the tedious beforehand wrangling with a living accomplice who might or might not take the trouble to make sure one's coffin (or trunk-most of us prefer extra-large double trunks for travel) hasn't been installed in the hold lid-down under several thousand pounds of some imbecilic American dowager's frocks. Half the time one has to kill the accomplice anyway. Usually it's a pleasure.

"Are you sure you wish to do this, Napier?" inquired Simon, who had come down to the docks in a closed car to see me off. Being a century and a half older among the UnDead than I-one of the oldest in Europe, in fact-he is able to tolerate even more twilight, waking slightly earlier and, if need presses, can prolong his wakefulness for a short time into the morning hours, though of course only with adequate protection from the sun's destructive light. "You won't be able to hunt once you're on board, you know. The White Star Line keeps very accurate manifests of its pa.s.sengers, even in third cla.s.s. It isn't like the old days."

"Simon," I joked, and laid my hand on his gloved wrist, "you've been vampire too long. You're turning into a cautious old spook-what do they call them these days? A fuddy-duddy." I knew all about the pa.s.senger manifests. I'd studied them closely.

We'd hunted the night before, close to sunrise. I'd killed twice. I knew it was going to be a long voyage. Seven or eight days, from Cherbourg to New York. A span of time that bordered on dangerous, for such as we.

I hoped I wasn't one of those vampires who turn crazy after four or five days without a kill-who are so addicted to the pleasure of the death, as well as to its simple nourishment-that they hunt under conditions which are sure to bring them to the attention of authorities: for instance, among a limited and closely watched group of people. But quite frankly, I didn't know. Without a kill every few days, we start to lose our ability to deceive and ensorcel the minds of the living, a situation I had never permitted to occur.

This was the first time in a hundred and forty years that I'd traveled very far from London. The first time since I had become vampire in 1772 that I had crossed the ocean.

When the UnDead travel, they are horribly vulnerable. Money has always provided some protection in the form of bribes, patent locks, servants, and social pressure (Why do you think it's always Evil Lord So-and-So in the penny dreadfuls? It's astonishing how much interest bonds acc.u.mulate if allowed to mature for two centuries). But, as I was shortly to learn, accidents do happen. And the longer the journey, the more the chances acc.u.mulate that something will go fearfully wrong.

"There's a new world across the ocean, Simon," I said, making my voice grave. "Face it, Europe cannot go on as it is. War is going to break out. The Kaiser is practically jostling statesmen in doorways in the hopes of being challenged. You've seen the new weapons they have. Airships, incendiary bombs, cannon that can demolish a city from miles away. It's a wise man who knows when to make his break for safety."

Ninety-five hours later I was kicking myself for those words, but who knew?

Simon smiled, something he rarely does. "Perhaps you are correct, my friend. Be that so, I trust you will act in the nature of a scout, and send me word of the promised land. Now go, if not with G.o.d, at least with the blessing of an indifferent Fate, my Evil Lord..." He checked my papers for the name: "...Lord Sandridge." He put on his black-tinted spectacles and accompanied me to the barrier, where he added the subtle influence of his mind to mine in the task of getting my luggage through unchecked. I ascended the gangway, and from the rail saw him wave, a slim small form in dark gray, perhaps my only friend among the UnDead.

We are not, you understand, particularly pleasant company, even for one another.

Then I went down to the first-cla.s.s luggage hold to make sure my coffin-trunk was both accessible and inconspicuous. Simon, I presume, returned home and slaughtered some unsuspecting immigrant en route for breakfast.

We put in at Queenstown on the Irish coast in the morning, before our final embarkation over the deep. It's always a d.a.m.nable struggle to remain awake in one's coffin for even a short time after the sun is in the sky, but I was determined to make the effort, and it's a good thing I did. Shortly after I'd locked myself in for the day-we were still several hours from Queenstown at that point-I heard stealthy steps on the deck, and smelled the stink of a man's nervous sweat.

Of course someone had noticed the obsessive care I'd taken in bestowing my trunk, and had drawn the usual stupid conclusion that the living are p.r.o.ne to. Greedy sods. Skeleton keys rattled close to my head. I forced down both grogginess and the quick flash of panic in my breast-the hold was absolutely sheltered from any chance of penetration by sunlight-and fought to acc.u.mulate enough energy to act.

Get away from here, you stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d! The living have no idea how commanding are the rhythms of vampire flesh; I felt as I had when in mortal life I'd gotten myself sodden-drunk on opium at the h.e.l.lfire Club. This ship stinks with American millionaires and you're trying to rob the trunk of a mere Evil Lord?

The outer lid opened, then the inner. I gazed up into a round unshaven face and brown eyes stretched huge with shock and fright.

I heaved myself up with what I hoped was a terrifying roar, wrenched the skeleton keys out of the young man's hand, and dropped back into the coffin, hauling the lid down after me and slamming shut its inner bolt. I heard outside a stifled gasping whimper, then heavy shoes hammering away across the deck and up the metal stairs.

I understand he abandoned ship at Queenstown and thus missed all subsequent events. A pity. Drowning was too good for the little swine.

It wasn't fear of robbery, however, that made me struggle to remain awake through the boarding-process at Queenstown, listening with a vampire's preternatural senses to every sound, every voice, every footfall in the ship around me. I had to know who was getting on the ship.

Because of course I had not been completely truthful with Simon as to my reasons for leaving England, or for embarking at Cherbourg for that matter. One never likes to admit when one has made a very foolish mistake.

Which brings me to the subject of Miss Alexandra Paxton.

I don't know under what name she boarded the t.i.tanic. She knew, you see, that I'd be keeping an eye on the pa.s.senger lists, and would have changed my own travel plans had I suspected she was on board.

It is another truism of the more puerile examples of horror fiction that the victims of Evil Lord So-and-So or the wicked Countess Blankovsky are generally of the upper, or at worst the professional, cla.s.ses. This is sheer foolishness, for these people keep track of one another, particularly in a small country like England. (Another motive for choosing America.) Vampires for the most part live on the poor. We kill people whom no one will miss. Regrettably, these people tend to be dirty, smelly, undernourished, frequently gin-soaked, and conversationally uninteresting. And we do enjoy the chase, the cat-and-mouse game: the long slow luring, for days and weeks at a time.

Which is how I'd happened to meet, and court, and flirt with, and take to the opera, and eventually kill Miss Cynthia Engle, only a few days before she was to have wed Lionel Paxton.

Lionel and his sister had sounded like a remarkably boring pair when Miss Engle had told me about them at our clandestine meetings, edged with danger and champagne. I hadn't allowed for my lovely victim's craving for the melodramatic, which discounted her suitor's native shrewdness. In any case, after a train of events too complicated and messy to go into, I had been obliged to kill Lionel as well.

Alexandra had been d.o.g.g.i.ng me ever since.

She came aboard at Queenstown, at the last possible moment. This was an unnecessary inconvenience on her part, since, as I've said, the sun was high in the sky and I couldn't have come up out of the hold even if I'd been awake. But I was aware of her, as I lay in the strange, clear awareness of the vampire sleep: smelled the distinctive vanilla and sandalwood of her dusting-powder, heard the sharp click of her stride on the decks.

And my heart sank.

There was no way I could kill her on board the t.i.tanic without causing a tremendous fuss and possibly being locked in a cabin which might contain a window, which really would give the good Captain Smith something to write about in his log.

But her goal, on the other hand, was not survival. I knew from a previous encounter that she wore about her neck and wrists silver chains that would effectively sear my flesh should I come in contact with them, and carried a revolver loaded with silver bullets which she would not have the slightest hesitation about firing.

I also knew she was an extremely accurate shot.

I can't tell you exactly how the UnDead know when it's safe to emerge from their hiding-places. There are those of us who can step forth in lingering Nordic twilights with no more than frantic itching of the skin and a sense of intolerable panic, others whose flesh will auto-combust while the last morning stars are still visible in the sky. Our instinct in this matter is very strong, however-and those of us who lack it generally don't remain vampires very long.

I quit my coffin-trunk the minute I felt I could do so safely, around seven-thirty Thursday night, and ascended the several flights of steps past the squash court and through the seamen's and third-cla.s.s quarters, down the long crew corridor known as "Scotland Road," and through a maze of pa.s.sages and emergency ladders eventually reached my own B Deck stateroom in First-Cla.s.s. The advertising for the t.i.tanic had strongly implied that no first-cla.s.s pa.s.senger need be even aware that such things as lesser mortals existed on the ship-another reason I'd chosen the vessel for my escape. Sharp-eyed stewards abounded to make sure those who paid for elevation above the Great Unwashed achieved it, but they, like most of the living (thank G.o.d) were prey to appearances. I was deep in conversation with the young and extremely pretty wife of an elderly American millionaire when the door of the stair from below opened and Miss Paxton slipped through.

She was clothed in a gown that must have cost her at least half of what her unfortunate brother had to leave: blue velvet with a bodice of cream-colored lace. A little aigret of blue gems and cream-colored feathers adorned the springy thickness of her mouse-brown hair. She was a tall girl, of the sort referred to by Americans as a "fine, strapping la.s.s"; her jaw was long, her nose narrow, and her blue-gray eyes cool and daunting. She carried a blue velvet handbag and a trailing ma.s.s of lace shawl draped in such a fashion as to conceal her right hand and whatever might have been in it, and I fled like a rabbit before she even got a glimpse of me.

"That young person," I said to the head steward as I pressed a hundred dollars American into his hand, "is an impostor, a confidence trickster who has been hara.s.sing me for a number of months. I do not know under what pretext she will attempt to get near me nor do I wish to know. Only keep her away from me, or from any room that I am in, for the duration of this voyage. Understand?"

"Yes, sir. Certainly, Lord Sandridge."

As I slipped through into the dining saloon an American matron's Pekingese lunged at me in a fury of yapping. They really should keep those nasty little vermin locked up.

Of course that wasn't the end of Miss Paxton. Having guessed I'd be traveling first-cla.s.s, she had invested G.o.d knows how much in a first-cla.s.s wardrobe, so I was never sure I could avoid her merely by sticking to the A Deck promenades. Nor could I afford to keep to my stateroom during the night hours when I was up and about. She would, I guessed, be looking for me. By whispers overheard from the cabin stewards and maids-and believe me, a vampire can hear whispers through both locked doors and the conversation of American socialites-I guessed she had garnered allies among them by some tale of disinheritance, persecution, and attempted rape.

She stalked me most of that first night, for she had a const.i.tution of iron; I was eventually reduced to donning an inconspicuous pair of trousers and a tweed jacket and hiding out on the third-cla.s.s deck among the Irish.

At sunrise I retired to my coffin-trunk again, but I did not sleep with anything resembling peace.

All through that day and the next I heard her footfalls, smelled her blood and dusting-powder, in the dark of my dreams as she moved through the holds.

I dreamed about her.

And I dreamed about the sea.

As Mr. Stoker so obligingly pointed out in his book Dracula, we-the UnDead-cannot cross running water, except at the hour of astronomical midnight, and at the moment when the tide turns. He is quite right. It was more than dread that seized me, when I and my vampire master stood on the threshold of London Bridge and he ordered me across. It was a sickness, a weakness that paralyzed me, as if death itself were rising from the moving river below us like poisoned mist. My master laughed at me, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and we took a hackney cab across the river to hunt. In later years we'd take the Underground. He'd keep me talking, to school me to focus my mind against the panicky disorientation that flowing water produces, but like all vampires I hate the temporary loss of my powers over the minds of the living.

That was the thing that most worried me during that April voyage. That while I could cajole, or manipulate, or charm, or bribe those luscious-smelling, warm-blooded, rosily glowing morsels with whom I was surrounded every night, I couldn't alter their perceptions of me, or of what was going on around them.

I couldn't make them fall in love with me, so they'd be eager to do my bidding.

I couldn't lure them in a trance into nooks and corners of the hold, nor could I stand outside their cabin doors and tamper with their dreams.

Except for the fact that I retained some, though not all, of the superhuman strength of a vampire, I was to all intents and purposes human again, and indeed a trifle less so. The touch of silver would sear and blister my flesh; the touch of sunlight set me ablaze like a screaming torch.

And if this wretched young woman-who was as tall as I, and strong for a mortal-managed somehow to tip me overside, once in the water I would be paralyzed. I would sink like a stone, Simon had warned me, for the vampire state changes the UnDead flesh and we become physically perfect: all muscle, no fat.

Fat is what floats a body. (Simon knows things like that. He's made a scientific study of our state, and is fond of parading his knowledge, solicited or not.) Even in the sunless black of the deep ocean, I would not die, though crushed by the pressure of the water and frozen by its cold. Nor would I be able to move, save for the few minutes after midnight, or when the moon pa.s.sed directly overhead and turned the tidal flow. Then the magnetism of the moving water would conquer again, and the sluggish currents push me where they would.

I would be conscious, Simon had a.s.sured me. (How the h.e.l.l would he know?) I could think of no state closer to those described by Dante in his book of h.e.l.l.

And if Miss Paxton shot me with a silver bullet, even if it did not strike my heart, the logical place for her to dump my then-unresisting body would be into the drink.

All these things wove in and out of my dreams, with the clack of her shoe-heels on the storage-hold deck.

It was altogether not a pleasant voyage, even before 11:39 pm on the night of April 14.

I'd put in a brief appearance in the dining-room that Sunday night, enough so that no over-solicitous fellow-pa.s.senger or cabin steward would come inquiring for my health during the daytime. My story was that I was too sea-sick to eat. Most older vampires come to despise the stench of human food. I enjoyed it, and enjoyed too the spectacle of my table-mates shoveling away quant.i.ties of poached salmon with mousseline sauce, roast duckling, squabs and cress, asparagus vinaigrette, foie gras and eclairs-to say nothing of gallons of cognac and wines. The flavors linger for many hours in the blood, another reason, incidentally, that we prefer to sup when we can on the rich rather than the poor.

My custom on the t.i.tanic was to spend most of my night moving from place to place in the first-cla.s.s accommodation. I hadn't seen Miss Paxton anywhere on the A or B Decks since Thursday night, but twice, once in the Palm Court outside the First-Cla.s.s Smoking Room and once in the corridor near my suite, I'd caught the lingering whiff of her dusting-powder. She was still finding her way up onto the First-Cla.s.s Decks.

She could be waiting for me, gun in hand, around any corner For that reason I was on the bow deck of the ship-as far forward on B Deck as I could get and a goodly distance from what might have been supposed to be a gentlemanly lurking-place in the First-Cla.s.s Smoking Room-when I saw a dark ma.s.s of almost-clear ice lying straight in the path of the ship.

Being on open water hadn't affected my ability to see in the dark, any more than it affected my ability to detect Miss Paxton's cologne. The iceberg, though several miles away, would be almost invisible to human eyes, for there was no moon that night and the ocean lay flat calm, eliminating even the telltale froth of waves breaking around the dark ice's base. The previous night, in my ramblings around the ship, I'd heard the men discussing a warning of heavy pack ice received from an American steamer coming east, and around dinner-time the temperature of the air had dropped.

I worried no more than did anybody else on-board about the t.i.tanic actually sinking, of course. Her hull was divided into water-tight compartments that could be closed at the touch of a b.u.t.ton. But I did worry about there being a period of confusion in which one pa.s.senger-that is to say myself-might easily be incapacitated (say, with a silver bullet in the back) and dropped overboard without anyone seeing it happen. An investigation might later focus on Miss Paxton's purported vengefulness, but that wouldn't do me any good.

I descended to the C Deck well and down the stairs to the cargo-holds, where the "Scotland Road" corridor would lead me, eventually, to the Grand Staircase, and so up again eventually to the Boat Deck, at the rear of which lay the bridge.

And there she was, stepping out of the door of a servants' stair, blocking my path.

She said softly, "I have you, villain."

I said, just as softly, "b.u.g.g.e.r."

She brought up her hand and I saw the gun in it. Down here surrounded by the crew quarters the sound of a shot would have brought everyone running, but at thirty feet it wasn't likely she'd miss. If she didn't get me through the heart the silver would cause such extraordinary damage as to both incapacitate me wherever it hit, and to cause great curiosity in the ship's doctor. On land I could have rushed her before she fired.

But I didn't trust my reflexes. I wheeled and plunged for the transverse pa.s.sageway that would take me-I hoped-down the smaller crew corridor, and so to another stairway up. Her heels clattered in pursuit as I darted around the corner, fled down the brightly lighted white tunnel. I debated for a moment simply stepping into the shadow beside the nearest stairway and taking her as she came past-this late at night it would be easy to drop her, unconscious (or dead-I hadn't fed in four days and I was ravenous), over the side.

But she had the gun. And I knew from the past that she was a l.u.s.ty screamer. I darted to the nearest downward stairway, and found myself lost in the mazes around the squash court and the quarters of lesser crew on F Deck. I could hear her behind me still, though farther off, it seemed. It was astonishing how those metal corridors re-echoed and tangled sound, and down here the thumping of the engines confused even the uncanny hearing of the UnDead. The main stairway led up through the third-cla.s.s dining-hall but that, I knew, would be the logical place for her to cut me off. There was another, smaller stair by the Turkish Bath, and that's where I was, halfway up, when a shuddering impact made the whole ship tremble and knocked me, reeling, off my feet and nearly to the bottom of the steps again.

I don't think I doubted for an instant that we'd hit that wretched iceberg.

Only a human could have missed it that long. It towered above the ship, for Heaven's sake, glistening but dark: it was almost clear ice, as I'd seen, not the powdery white of ice that's been exposed to the air. I understand (again, from Simon, who wasted not a moment after I finally reached London again in telling me, I told you so) that when the upper sides of icebergs melt sufficiently to alter their balance they sometimes flip over, exposing faces that are far less reflective, especially on a moonless night. Even so...

I clung for a moment to the stair-rail, listening. The lights still blazed brightly, and after the first long, grinding jar there was no further shaking. But as I stretched my senses out-out and down, to the decks below me-I could hear the dim confusion of men's voices, the clatter of frenzied activity.

And the pounding roar of water shooting into the ship as if forced from a fire-hose.

I thought, d.a.m.n it, if it floods the First-Cla.s.s luggage hold I'm sunk. I blush to say that was the very expression that formed itself in my mind, though at the time I thought only in terms of my light-proof double trunk and the two handsome windows in my stateroom. I had no idea what the White Star Line procedure was for keeping track of pa.s.sengers and luggage on a disabled ship until another vessel could come alongside to take everyone off, but there was no guarantee that any of that would happen until after daylight.

On the other hand, I thought, depending on how much confusion there was, it would now be very easy to dispose of Miss Paxton without anyone being the wiser.

Trunk first.

First-Cla.s.s luggage was on G Deck, at the bow. The gangways were sufficiently wide to get the trunk up at least as far as the C Deck cargo well. I was striding forward along a corridor still largely deserted-crewmembers sleep whenever they can, the lazy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds-when the heavy beat of the engines ceased.

Silence and utter stillness, for the first time since we'd lain at Queenstown, filled the ship, seeming louder than any thunder.

I wasn't the only one to find the silence more disturbing than impact with thousands of tons of ice. Doors began opening along the corridor, men and women-most of them young and all of them tousled from sleep-emerged. "What is it?" "Why're we stopped?"

"Hit an iceberg," I said. I pulled a roll of banknotes from the pocket of my tuxedo jacket, and added, "I'll need a.s.sistance getting my trunk from the First-Cla.s.s hold. It contains papers that I cannot risk having soaked." I could have carried the trunk by myself, of course, but if seen doing so I could kiss good-by any chance of remaining unnoticed, unquestioned, or uninvestigated for the rest of the trip.

"I'm sorry, Lord Sandridge." Fourth Officer Boxhall appeared behind me, uniformed and worried-looking. "We may need the crew to stand by and help with the mailroom, if the water comes up onto the Orlop Deck. If you'll return to your stateroom, I'll have a man come there the moment we know one can be spared. At the moment there doesn't seem to be much damage, but we should know more within half-an-hour."

I could have told him there was water pouring into what sounded like several of the water-tight compartments down below, but reasoned he'd have the truth very shortly. One of the stewardesses was looking closely at me, a thick-chinned, fair-haired Yorkshire girl whom I'd seen more than once in conversation with Miss Paxton. She moved off swiftly down the corridor, slipping between the growing gaggles of crewmen. So much for any hope of waiting in my stateroom.

Still, I thought, midnight was only ten minutes off. If there were crewmen hauling sacks of mail out of the way of floodwaters in the First-Cla.s.s cargo hold, I'd be able to divert their attention from me while I rescued the trunk myself.

Or killed Miss Paxton.

And by long before sunrise, I reflected as I strode toward the stair, I'd know whether I was going on another vessel, or staying hidden in some sun-proof, locked nook on the t.i.tanic while repairs were effected. With any luck I'd be able to get an immigrant or two in the confusion as well.

Miss Paxton would be up on B Deck, headed for my stateroom. On C Deck some of the Swedes and Armenians from steerage were still laughing and playing with chunks of the ice that had been sc.r.a.ped off the iceberg. On the B Deck promenade a few people were prowling about, dressed in their coats and their thickest sweaters; a young man in evening-clothes showed me a piece of ice, then dropped it in his highball: "Saw the thing go past. b.l.o.o.d.y amazing!"

"You don't think there's been any damage to the ship?" asked an elderly lady, doddering by on the arm of her superannuated spouse.