Victoria Nelson - Blood Lines Part 21

"Yes. Well, I made a slight error in judgment. It could have happened to anyone." In the darkness, Tawfik smiled. "Shall I tell you what it was? It is completely irrelevant to this time and place so even if you wished to, you couldn't use it against me. During what you now call the Eighteenth Dynasty, although things were extremely prosperous for Egypt, most n.o.bles had very large families which meant that a number of the younger n.o.bility had nothing to do. In such a social climate, the temple of Akhekh grew and flourished. My lord had more sworn acolytes than at any time since the conquest. Unfortunately, although I didn't see it as unfortunate at the time, two of the Pharaoh's younger sons joined our number.

This finally attracted the attention of the greater G.o.ds."

He paused, sighed, and shook his head. When he began to speak again, his voice had lost its lecturing tone and had become only the voice of a man sharing painful memories.

"The sons of the Pharaoh were the sons of Osiris reborn and Osiris would not have them corrupted by what he termed an abomination. So Thoth, G.o.d of wisdom, came to one of his priests in a dream and told them how I might be overcome. My protections were shattered and once again I was dragged from my temple. The first time, I was left alive because my life had no meaning. This time, they were afraid to kill me because my life had gone on for so long. Even the G.o.ds were wary of what might happen should my ka be released into Akhekh's keeping with so many acolytes still performing the rituals. I was not to be slain, I was to be entombed alive. All this I was told as the priests of Thoth prepared me for burial.

"Three thousand years later, my prison was brought here to this city and I was freed."

"And you destroyed the man who gave you your freedom."

"Destroying him gave me my freedom. I needed his knowledge."

"And the other. The custodian."

"I needed his life. I had been entombed for three thousand years, Nightwalker. I had to feed. Would you have done any differently?"

Henry remembered the three days he had spent beneath the earth, hunger clawing at him until hunger became all he was. "No," he admitted, as much to himself as to Tawfik, "I would have fed. But," he shook free of the memory, "I would not have killed those others, not the children."

Tawfik shrugged. "I needed their power."

"So you took their lives."

"Yes." He shifted on the bench, linking his fingers together and leaning his forearms across his thighs. "I told you all this, Nightwalker, so you would learn you cannot stop me. You are no wizard. Thoth and Osiris are long dead and cannot help you. Your G.o.d does not interfere."

First the stick. "If you oppose me, I will be forced to destroy you."

And then the carrot. "As I see it, you have two choices; live and let live, asI am willing to do with you, or join me."

"Join you." Henry was not quite in control of the repet.i.tion. "Yes. We have much in common, you and I."

"We have nothing in common."

Tawfik lifted his brows. "Of course we don't." The sarcasm had a razor edge. "This city has many more immortal beings."

"You murder the innocent."

"And you have never killed to survive?"

"Yes, but..."

"Killed for power?"

"Not the innocent."

"And who declared them guilty?"

"They did, by their own actions."

"And who appointed you as judge and jury and executioner? Have I not as much right to appoint myself to the position as you did?"

"I have never destroyed the innocent!" Henry held tightly to that while the sun grew brighter behind his eyes.

"There are no innocents. Or do you deny your church's position on original sin?"

"You argue like a Jesuit!"

"Thank you. I am as immortal as you are, Richmond. I will never grow old, I will never die, I will never leave you. Not even another Nightwalker can promise you that."

Vampires were solitary hunters. Humans were pack animals. In order to survive in a human world, the vampire could not surrender all humanity-those who did were quickly destroyed by the terror they evoked-and this double nature found itself constantly at war with itself. But to find a companion, one who would neither cause instinctive b.l.o.o.d.y battles over territory nor die just when he had become an intrinsic part of life...

"No!" Henry leapt to his feet and flung himself forward into the darkness, trying to outdistance the sun.

Halfway across the park, he managed to stop himself and, fingers dug deep into the living bark of a tree, old and gnarled and half his age, he fought back.

"I have lived, knowing I was immortal, for thousands of years." Tawfik continued to speak, sure that the Night-walker could hear him. He watched the reaction of the other's ka and chose his words accordingly. "I am perhaps the only man you will ever meet who can understand you, who can know what you go through. Who can accept you entirely for what you are. I, too, have seen the ones I love grow old and die." Listening, in spite of himself, Henry saw the years take Vicki from him as the years had taken the others.

"I am asking you to stand by my side, Nightwalker. A man should not go alone through the centuries; neither of us need ever stand alone again. You need not go blindly forward. I have lived the years you will live, I can be there to guide you." Tawfik couldn't quite hide the gasp as the Nightwalker was suddenly, silently, beside him again.

"You never told me what you plan to do now." The answer wasn't as important as shutting off the words, banishing the specter of isolation they invoked. He couldn't just walk away, so he had to change the subject.

"I plan to build a temple, as I have always done when I start a new life, and I will gather acolytes to serve my G.o.d. This is my only concern at this time, Nightwalker, for the acolytes should be sworn as soon as possible-a G.o.d deserves worshipers, rituals, all the little things that make being a deity worthwhile."

"Then why try to control the police and the justice system?"

"New religions are often prosecuted. I have a way to prevent that and so I do. With no need to hide, I will shout AKHEKH from the top of the highest mountain. And once the temple is large enough to provide me with the power I need, your innocents will be safe." Tawfik stood and held out his hand.

"You live like a mortal, searching for immediate solutions, immediate answers. Why not plan for eternity?

Why not plan with me?" He now had enough of a key to the Nightwalker's ka that if Richmond would just voluntarily reach out and take his hand, that act of trust would plant hooks that the younger man would never shake loose.

In time those hooks would pull him closer and, in time, he would feed.

Scent and sound told Henry that Tawfik had not lied once since he began to speak.

Henry felt young, confused, afraid. For the seventeen years he had lived as a mortal he had fought to gain his father's love and approval. Tawfik-older, wiser, incontestably in control-made him feel the way his father had. Four hundred and fifty years hunting the night alone should have erased the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who only wanted to belong. It hadn't. He didn't know what to think. He stared down at the offered hand and wondered how it would feel to be able to plan for more than just a part of one mortal lifetime. To be part of a greater whole. But if Tawfik hadn't lied...

"Your G.o.d is a dark G.o.d. I want no part of him."

"You need have nothing to do with my G.o.d. Akhekh asks nothing of you.I ask for your companionship.

Your friendship."

"Youare more dangerous than your G.o.d!" On the last word, Henry launched himself forward. Red lines flared and he found himself flat on his back two meters away.

Tawfik let his hand drop slowly to his side. "Foolish child," he said softly. "I will not destroy you now as I could, nor will I take back the offer. If you grow tired of an eternity alone, come to the corner where we met tonight and I will find you." He felt the Nightwalker's gaze on him as he turned and walked away, not entirely displeased with the evening's work. The surface of the other's ka boiled with emotions too tangled for even millennia of experience to sort out but all of them, eventually, came back to him. The evening ma.s.s was nearly over when Henry slipped into the church and settled into one of the empty pews at the back. Confused and frightened, he had come to the one place that had, through all the years and all the changes, stayed the same. Well, almost the same. He still missed the cadences, the grandeur of the Latin and occasionally murmured his responses in the language of the past.

The Inquisition had driven him from the church for a time but needing, at the very least, the continuity of worship, he had returned. Sometimes he saw the church as an immortal being in its own right, living much as he did during carefully prescribed hours, surviving on the blood of the mortals who surrounded it. And often the blood was less than metaphorical, for more had been shed in the name of a G.o.d of love...

He stood with the rest, hands lightly holding the warm wood of the pew in front of him.

Over the centuries there had been compromises, of course. The church declared he had no soul. He disagreed. He had seen men and women without souls-for a soul can be given up to despair or hatred or rage-but did not count himself among them. Confession had been a trial in the beginning, until he realized that the sins the priests would understand, gluttony, anger, l.u.s.t, sloth applied as much to him as to mortals and that the specific actions were unimportant. He did the penance prescribed. He came away feeling part of a greater whole.

Except that he could not, since his change, take communion.

So once again I am set to one side, different from the closest thing to community I have known.

He found it interesting that Tawfik-the only other immortal being he had met since Christina and he had parted- came complete with a G.o.d of his own. Perhaps immortals needed that kind of continuity outside themselves. He found himself thinking of discussing the theory with Tawfik and thrust the thought away.

The pew back groaned under his grip and he hurriedly forced his hands to relax.

If not for the promises he had made to Tony, he would have run before he had the chance to be tempted. And if not for Vicki, the temptation would not have been so great. Vicki offered him friendship, perhaps even love, although she seemed to be frightened of what that implied, but her mortality sounded in the song of her blood and every beat of her heart took her one heartbeat closer to death. In time, in a very short time relative to the time he had already lived, she would be gone and soon after her, Tony, and then the loneliness would return.

Tawfik promised an end to the loneliness, a place to belong for longer than the length of a mortal life.

Why not plan for eternity?

The sun blazed up behind his eyes. It seemed he could no longer be completely unaware of Tawfik's existence.

If I die, I would have the eternity the church promises. It would be so easy to take that way out, come the dawn.Except that suicide is a sin .

The greater sin would be the pain he would leave behind. If he wanted to take that way out, he would have to wait. With a sudden lightening of his heart, he realized that for the first time in weeks, for the first time since the dreams had started, he could face the dawn without fear. The sun that Tawfik pushed at him could no longer push him in that direction. Whatever else happened-desire and fear and ident.i.ty were still a tangled mess he could not sort-that would not. The priest lifted one hand, his eyes nearly shut above the curves of his cheeks. "Go in peace," he said softly, and it sounded as though he meant it.

The ma.s.s over, the congregation of mostly elderly immigrants began to file out. Henry hung behind, waiting, while the priest greeted each of them at the door. When the last black-clad body was on its way down the path, he stepped forward and captured the priest's gaze.

"Father, I need to talk to you."

More than vocation made it impossible for the priest to refuse that request.

-It was seven ten when he got back to the condo, barely eighteen minutes before sunrise. Vicki met him at the door, grabbed his hands, and practically dragged him inside.

"Where the h.e.l.l have you been," she snarled, worry twisting into anger now he was safe.

"I had an encounter with our mummy."

The flatness of his tone penetrated.You can deal with this only if you deny the effect it had . Over the years Vicki had seen enough of the effects of major trauma to recognize this particular defense mechanism in her sleep. With an effort, she damped her own emotions to suit. "So you found it. Tony called me about midnight, he was afraid the creature had sucked up your life the way it had the baby's.

Mike drove me over. I'll have to call him after sunrise and let him know what happened."Provided you let me know what happened .

Henry could hear a slow and quiet heartbeat coming from the living room.

"Tony finally fell asleep on the couch about four," she continued. "I'll get him out of here after I've got you safe."

The grip that pulled him purposefully through the apartment would have been painfully tight around a mortal's hand; even Henry found it a bit uncomfortable. He made no effort to break it though; it was a welcome anchor.

Not until they reached the bedroom and the door had been closed behind him and the blackout curtain drawn, did Vicki release him. Leaving him standing in the middle of the room, she sat down on the end of the bed and slid her gla.s.ses back up the bridge of her nose.

"If you had died out there," she said slowly, because if she didn't speak she was going to explode, "you would have left a hole in my life impossible to fill. I've always hated the thought of putting conditions on..." She wet her lips. "...on love but if you ever go off to face an enemy whose strengths we don't know, who we know can kill with a look, who just the night before sent you running from him in panic, and don't come back looking at least a little the worse for wear..." Her head jerked up and she met his eyes. "... I'm going to wring your f.u.c.king vampiric neck. Do I make myself clear?"

"I think so. You went through h.e.l.l, so I better have?" He sat down beside her on the bed. "If it makes you feel any better, I did."

"f.u.c.k off, Henry, that's not what I meant." She wiped viciously at the tear that traced a line down her cheek. "I was scared spitless you'd taken on more than you could handle..." "I had." He raised a hand to cut her off. "But not because I had to prove something after last night. I grew out of stupid displays of machismo three centuries ago. I went because Tony needed me to."

Vicki took a deep breath, and her shoulders straightened as though a weight had lifted. G.o.d knows, she'd taken impossible risks in her time, and, thank G.o.d, he'd had a reason she could live with. "You are such an idiot."

Henry leaned forward and drew the flavor of her mouth deep into his. "And you have such interesting ways of sayingI love you ," he murmured against her lips. He realized just how frightened for him she'd been when she made no protest, merely returned his embrace with an intensity that held a hint of desperation. When she finally drew back, he got to his feet and began to strip off his shirt. If he didn't hurry, he'd be spending the day in his clothes.

She watched him, the soft, anxious expression she'd worn for a moment hardening into something a little closer to,All right, let's get on with this . "Are you okay?"

"Well, to begin, I didn't find him, he found me." He tossed the shirt to the floor. "And I discovered that the sun that I've been dreaming about has been nothing more than a manifestation of his life-energy."

"What?"

"Apparently there were times I was more susceptible than others. And now I've met him, I can't completely tune him out."

"You can always see the sun?"

"It hovers on the edge of my consciousness."

"Jesus Christ, Henry!"

"He frightens me, Vicki. I can't see any way we can beat him."

Her brows drew down. "What did he do to you?"

"He talked." Henry flipped the covers back and got into the bed. The sun, the other sun, trembled on the horizon. "He twisted me into knots and left me to sort myself out."

She shifted around until she faced him again. "Did you?"

"I think so. I don't know."I won't know until I face him again . "I spent the night trying to redefine myself. The church. The hunt." He reached out and laid two fingers against her wrist. "You."

I'm worried sick and he's out having a prayer, a snack, and a f.u.c.k? The smell of s.e.x that clung to him was faint but unmistakable now she'd been made aware of it.Calm down. Everyone deals with trauma his own way. At least he made it home . "And what about you do I define?"

"My heart."

She laid her palm gently on his bare chest, stroking the soft red-gold curls with her thumb. "I really hate this mushy stuff." "I know." He almost smiled, then quickly sobered again. "I tried to attack him. I couldn't even get close.

He's dangerous, Vicki."

He obviously wasn't referring to the deaths that had occurred since the mummy disentombed itself and the faint shadow of pain that slipped into his voice was far more disturbing than out and out panic would have been. "Why?"

"Because I can't reject his offer out of hand."

"His offer?" Vicki's brows snapped down so hard that her gla.s.ses trembled on the very tip of her nose.

"What offer? Tell me!"

He began to shake his head...