Victoria Nelson - Blood Lines Part 20

"Is something wrong?" The words had been given a professional shading that told him she knew something was wrong and he might as well tell her what.

"Nothing's wrong. Tony's here." Behind him, he heard Tony shift his weight on the couch.

"What's wrong withTony ?"

The obvious conclusion; he should've known she'd jump to it. "He has a problem. But I'm going to take care of it for him. Tonight."

"What kind of problem?"

"Just a minute." He covered the mouthpiece, half turned, and raised a questioning eyebrow.

Tony emphatically shook his head, fingers digging deep into a cushion. "Don't tell her, man. You know what Victory's like; she'll forget she's only human, just charge out there and challenge the guy and the next thing we'll know, she's history."

Henry nodded.And I am not only human. I am the night. I am Vampire. I want her with me. I don't want to face this creature alone . "Vicki? He doesn't want me to tell you. It's uh, trouble with a man."

"Oh." He didn't dare read anything into the pause that followed. "Well,I want to spend some time with Mike this evening; fill him in on what we know is happening. Warn him." Again the pause. "If you don't need me..."

What did she sense? The half lie? His fear? "Will you be here for the dawn?" Regardless of whathappened tonight, if he was to have another dawn, he wanted her there for it.

"I will." It had the sound of a pledge.

"Then give my regards to the detective."

Vicki snorted. "Not likely." Her voice softened. "Henry? Be careful." And she was gone.

A little of the horror lost its effect. It was amazing how much "be careful" could sound like "I love you."

Holding her words-her tone-like a talisman, he went over the location with Tony one more time, shrugged into his coat, and went out into the night. He took dubious comfort in the knowledge that now, at least, he could be sure he wasn't going crazy.

Many of the spells he had spent long years learning would have to be adapted to this new time and place. Unfortunately, as he now found himself in a culture that held few things sacred, finding subst.i.tutions would not be easy. The ibex had been revered to the extent that sacred had become a pan of its name and that made beak and blood and bone very powerful agents for magic. Somehow he doubted that rendering up a Canada goose would have the same effect.

Suddenly he sat bolt upright in the chair and twisted to face the windows. It was out there. And it was close. He scrambled to his feet and began to throw on street clothes. His ka would not need to search again, simple awareness of the young man would be enough to find him.

He didn't know how that glorious light had been hidden during the day, although he expected he'd soon find out. One way or another.

Henry had traced the scent to the southeast corner of Bloor and Queen's Park Road where it split, one track going north, the other south. Slowly he stood, brushed off the knee that had been resting on the concrete, and considered what he should do next. He knew what he wanted to do, he wanted to go back to Tony, say he couldn't find the creature, and deal with the younger man's fear instead of his own.

Except that wasn't the way it worked. He had made Tony his responsibility. Honor had driven him out onto the streets and honor would not let him return.

Night had followed day, cold and clear, the kind of weather where the scent clung to the ground and the hunt rode out behind the hounds.

His best friend, the brother of his heart, Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, rode beside him, their geldings tearing across the frozen turf neck and neck. Ahead, the staghounds bayed and just barely ahead of the pack the quarry raced in a desperate attempt to outrun the death that closed upon its heels. Henry didn't see the exact moment the dogs closed in, but there was a scream of almost human pain and terror and then the stag thrashed on the ground.

He pulled up well back from the seething ma.s.s of snarling dogs who darted past striking hooves and tossing antlers to worry at the great beast, but Surrey took his horse as close as it would go, leaning forward in the stirrups, eyes on the knife and the throat and the hot spurt of blood that steamed in the bitter November air.

"Why?" he asked Surrey later, when the hall was filled with the smell of roasting venison andthey were sitting bootless, warm before the fire.

Surrey frowned, the elegant line of his black brows dipping in toward the bridge of his nose. "I didn't want the death of such a splendid animal to be wasted. I thought I might find a poem..."

His voice trailed off so Henry prodded, "Did you?"

"Yes. " The frown grew thoughtful. "But a poem too red for me I think. I will write the hunt and keep the stag alive. "

Four hundred and fifty odd years later, Henry answered as he had then. "But there is always death at the end of a hunt."

The track to the south had almost been buried beneath the other footsteps of the day. The track to the north seemed better defined, as though it had been taken more than once; to and from a hotel room perhaps. Henry crossed Bloor, drew even with the church on the corner, and froze so completely motionless that the stream of Sunday night pedestrians flowed seamlessly around him.

He knew the dark-haired, dark-eyed man approaching.

Chapter Twelve.

Henry waited, motionless, while the other man drew closer. He felt like a rabbit caught in headlights, fully aware that death and destruction bore down on him but unable to move. The sun grew brighter and brighter behind his eyes until he struggled to see around it.

I have no way to fight this...

And then, suddenly, he recognized what he faced. His kind could sense the lives around them, not only through scent and sound but also with an awareness peculiar to those who hunted the night. What he felt approaching was a life, ancient, unlike any life he had ever felt before, and the sun only a symbol created to deal with it.

I have been aware of his life from the moment he awoke, most aware in the times I am most vulnerable. Blessed Christ, he has driven me almost to death just by existing.

Brows down and teeth clenched, he fought to drive this life from the foreground of his mind, finally managing to push it back and dim the light although he could not banish it entirely. It existed now as a background to all he did, but at least it no longer blinded him.

The night returned, Henry blinked, and found himself sinking into irises so deep a brown they looked black. Just before this darkness closed over bun, he snarled and pulled free.

"I will not go unresisting like a lamb to the slaughter!"

Force of will slammed at the spell of absorption and shattered it. In all the centuries since his G.o.d had changed him, he had never felt such raw power.

He should have known it would not be so easy and he would not have even made the attempt had he not been blinded by the glory of the other's ka. This one had protections; not only personal strength butalso strong ties to the one G.o.d who had swept the old ways down. Each alone might be enough to stop him from taking what he so deeply desired, together they were very nearly an impenetrable barrier.

But I will have this ka. I must.

He touched only the very outermost edges of the other's thoughts. In them, he could feel himself and he could feel fear. Both would give him, if not a way through, a way around. He probed for other weaknesses but saw only the blaze of unlimited potential.

"What are you?"

Henry, muscles twisted into knots across his shoulders, hands clenched so tightly into fists that his nails cut crescents into his palms, saw no reason not to answer. He pitched his voice so that it traveled across the distance between them but no further and threw it like a challenge.

"I am Vampire."

The ka he had absorbed since awakening gave him a confusing pastiche of images not many of which seemed to have much to do with the young man standing before him. He sifted through the information until he recognized what he faced. His people had called them by another name.

No wonder the young man's ka burned so brightly; as long as the Night walkers fed on the blood of the living, they were immortal. As immortal as he was himself. Did his own ka burn like a beacon? A pity he would never know, for it was the one ka he could not see.

What power would be his if he fed on the ka of an immortal being! It would no longer be necessary to work through pitiful human tools. He would rule from the beginning in his own name.

Perhaps... perhaps a seat in the council of the G.o.ds would not be beyond him. He saw himself surrounded by glory, no longer the servant of a petty minor deity but a master in his own name. Quickly, as much as he thrilled to it, he buried the thought deep. It would not do for Akhekh to find it.

But to devour an immortal ka-he had been so blinded by the life remaining, he had never even looked at the life lived, never even noticed it was far longer than the normal human span. He was, he discovered, the elder by a good many centuries, even discounting the millennia he had spent imprisoned. Still, he would have to move carefully, for if he was to finally feast, the Nightwalker's protections must be lowered. He did not have the power to break them down, even considering the fear woven through them.

Why do you fear me, Nightwalker?

Although it was an emotion he would use, it was a question he could not ask. So he asked another.

"Why do you search me out, Nightwalker?"

Why indeed?

"You hunt in my territory."

Ambiguous enough to hide a mult.i.tude of motives and also, Henry discovered as he spoke, the truth.

Again he attempted to read the other's ka, to enter past the surface, but he got no further this time thanhe had before.

"I would talk with you, Nightwalker. Shall we walk together for a time?"

Henry wanted to say no, torn between a desire to run and a desire to rip out the creature's throat and drink deeply of the blood he could hear surging beneath the smooth column of throat. The first would bring him no closer to a solution. The second... well, even if he could get past the defenses all wizards wore, which he doubted, it was Sunday evening at a major intersection in downtown Toronto and committing a violent murder in front of hundreds of witnesses, while it would be a solution of sorts, would not be one he himself would likely survive.

So, because it seemed the best, if not the only choice, he turned and fell into step at the other's side, trying to ignore the sun that continued to blaze in one corner of his mind.

They walked south down Queen's Park Road and the power that walked with them turned more than a few heads as they went.

"What shall I call you?" Henry asked at last.

"I use the name Anwar Tawfik. You may call me that."

"That's not the name you were born with."

"Of course not." He laughed gently, an elder chiding an errant pupil. "I took the name upon awakening. I am not likely to give you the power of my birth name." He had not heard his birth name spoken since before the joining of Egypt into a single country. "And I am to call you...?"

"Richmond." Although he had answered to it in the past it had been a t.i.tle, not a name, and so should be safe from whatever magics could be wrapped around it.

They walked a short distance further, until the sounds of Bloor Street faded and then, in mutual agreement, crossed over to the park. After dark on a November evening, they walked alone on paths damp with fallen leaves, under trees nearly bare. No one would overhear the words to be spoken; no one would have to die because they had heard.

The scattering of lights pushed back the darkness only in isolated areas; in the rest of the park the night stretched unbroken from infinity to the ground. Little light of any kind reached the bench they chose and as Henry watched Tawfik lower himself carefully down, he realized that the other had no better than mortal vision.

So I hold the advantage of sight. For all the good it will do.

Tawfik smelled of excitement, not fear, and his heart beat only a fraction faster than human norm. The movement of his blood called to the Hunger even as the weight of his life overwhelmed any desire Henry had to feed. Henry could smell the fear on himself and his own heart, while still ponderously slow by mortal measuring, beat faster and harder than it had in years.

Tawfik spoke first, his voice sounding mildly amused. "You have a hundred questions, why not begin?"

Why not? But where? Perhaps with the question he himself had answered. "What are you?" "I am the last remaining priest of the G.o.d Akhekh."

"What are you doing here?"

"Do you mean how do I come to be here, in this century, in this place? Or do you mean what am I doing now I am here?"

"Both."

Tawfik shifted on the bench. "Well, that is, as they say, a long story and as you have only until dawn..."He saw no reason to lie to the Nightwalker about how and what he was and, although he would chose his words carefully, he was also willing to speak of his plans. After all, he wanted to win young Richmond's trust.

Fortunately, Dr. Rax provided him with a twentieth century framework to hang his story on.

"I was born about 3250 BC, in Upper Egypt just before Merinar, who had been King of Lower Egypt, created one empire that stretched the length of the Nile. I was, at the time of the conquest, a high-ranking priest of Set-not the Set that common history remembers, he was then a benevolent G.o.d, unfortunately on the losing side. After the conquest, Horus the elder, the highest of the G.o.ds of Lower Egypt, cast Set down and declared him unclean. Set, still very powerful, merely worked his way into the new pantheon."

Tawfik's tone grew slightly dry. "Egyptian G.o.ds were, if nothing else, flexible.

"I, as a ranking priest, had been cast down with my G.o.d, stripped and scourged and thrown out of my temple. Only mortal and already middle-aged, I hadn't the luxury of concerning myself with Set's long-term plans. I wanted immediate revenge and I was willing to do..." He paused and Henry saw him frown as he remembered. "I was willing to do anything to regain the power and prestige I had lost.

"To me came Akhekh, a minor and dark deity, who in the confusion of the heavens had managed to get hold of more power than usual. 'Swear to me,' said Akhekh,'dedicate your life to my service, and I will give you the time you need for your revenge. I will make you more powerful than you have ever been. Become my priest and I will give you the power to destroy the ka of your enemies. You will feed on their souls and with such nourishment live forever. ' "

Tawfik turned to face Henry and smiled tightly. "Now do not for a moment think that Akhekh made this offer out of regard for me. The G.o.ds exist only as long as belief exists. A change in those who believe, means a change in the G.o.ds. When no one believes any longer, the G.o.ds lose definition, their sense of self if you will, and are absorbed back into the whole." He caught a powerful negative flare from the Nightwalker's ka and inclined his head politely toward the other man. "You wanted to say...?"

Henry hadn't intended to say anything, but he found that when challenged he couldn't hold back.I will not be like Peter and deny my lord . "There is only one G.o.d."

"Richmond, please." Tawfik didn't bother to keep the amus.e.m.e.nt out of his voice. "You, at least, should know better. Perhaps there may someday be only one G.o.d, when all people dream and desire alike, and there are certainly less G.o.ds now than there were before I was entombed. But one G.o.d? No. I can...

introduce you to my G.o.d, if you wish."

The night seemed to grow a little darker.

"No." Henry ground the word through clenched teeth. Tawfik shrugged. "As you wish. Now then, where was I? Oh, yes. Of course, I accepted Akhekh's offer; that it came from a dark G.o.d meant little to me under the circ.u.mstances. I discovered that not only could I extend my life and power my magics with the life remaining in the ka I absorbed, but I also gained the life knowledge that ka held. An invaluable resource for those necessary moves between cultures that occur over a long, a very long life."

"So when you killed Dr. Rax..."

"I absorbed the power of his remaining life and came to know everything he knew. The younger the life the less knowledge but the greater potential for power."

"Then the infant you killed earlier today..."

That jerked Tawfik out of his relaxed posture. "How did you know?" he demanded and knew the answer before the question had quite left his mouth. The young man who had been watching, fully aware of what had occurred-the young man who had fled in terror-must have fled to the protection of the Nightwalker. He had heard they sometimes gathered mortals about them, a ready food source when hunting became unsure.So, another p.a.w.n has entered the game . Tawfik let nothing but the question show on his face or in his voice. If the Nigbtwalker thought he had forgotten the young man, his protection would be less extreme and easier to circ.u.mvent.

Henry heard Tawfik's heart speed up, but the wizard-priest made no mention of Tony. Perhaps Tony had been wrong and he hadn't been spotted. Given Tony's terror, that seemed unlikely. Perhaps Tawfik played a deeper game and had no wish to tip his hand. Tawfik no doubt had his own reasons for denying a witness; Henry's were simple, he would not betray a friend. He let the beast show in his voice as he repeated, "You've been hunting in my territory."

Tawfik recognized the threat, and countered with one of his own, playing on the Nightwalker's barely controlled fear of him. "As you were about to observe, the infant I killed earlier today made mevery powerful." Stalemate again. "Now then, if I may continue with my history...?"

"Go on."

"Thank you." Akhekh's offer had come with a condition; he could not devour the ka of one already sworn. For the first hundred years after the conquest, while the pantheon settled, the unsworn were easy to find and he had risen in power-which he discovered he desired much more than revenge-and the cult of Akhekh had grown strong. But the more stable and prosperous Egypt was, the more the people were content with their G.o.ds and the fewer unattached ka were available, so his power and Akhekh's-waxed and waned in counterpoint to Egypt's.This age had a decadence he recognized and had every intention of exploiting-they were ripe for rituals Akhekh had to offer. Tawfik saw no reason to mention any of that to the Nightwalker.

"Because of me, my lord, in spite of his relatively subordinate position in the pantheon, was never absorbed into the greater G.o.ds like so many of the lesser deities had been and so in every age, in a thousand places along the Nile, I raised a temple to Akhekh." Occasionally, he was the only worshiper, but no need to mention that either. "Now and then, other priests objected to my having stepped out of the cycle of life, but the centuries had made me a skilled wizard-And had taught me when to cut my losses and leave town.-so they could not take me down. As I only destroyed those who had no allegiance to a G.o.d, the other G.o.ds refused to get involved." "But you were taken down, in the end."