Victoria Nelson - Blood Lines Part 31

Celluci snorted. "Fine. Just fine." He looked down at the powder, his movements jerky and tightly controlled. "All things considered. Why didn't..."The pause filled with a common memory of glowing red eyes. "...it save him? I mean, it made him."

Henry shook his head. "I don't know. I guess we'll never know. But I could feel Tawfik's life right until the last second. He was aware the whole time he was... was..."

"Dying. Jesus H. Christ." It was more a prayer than a profanity.

A collective moan that broke down into a babble of near hysteria drew their attention back out onto the dance floor. Most of Tawfik's ex-acolytes appeared to be in a state of shock. Most but not all.

Shirt wrapped in a makeshift bandage around his leg, supported by one of the two judges and the Deputy Chief of the OPP, Cantree dragged himself out of the crowd and scowled at the three on the platform.

"What the h.e.l.l," he demanded, "has been going on here?"

"Go ahead, Mike." Vicki's head lolled back against the rail as she tried to decide whether she'd rather puke or cry, and if she had the energy to do either. "He's your boss. You tell him..."

Celluci showed up at Henry's condo about an hour before dawn. He'd spent an uncomfortable two hours with Cantree in the emergency ward at St. Michael's Hospital telling him as much as he seemed willing to hear.

"You realize what this sounds like, don't you?"

"Yeah, I realize."

"I'd say you were the biggest liar of my acquaintance if it weren't for two things. I had no reason to have you arrested, yet I can remember giving the order and, just before you shot me, kind of hovering over your head..."He wet his lips. "... I saw a pair of red glowing eyes. "

"Apparently, it feeds on despair."

Cantree shifted position on the gurney and winced. "Nice to hear you weren't looking forward to pulling the trigger..." Moving carefully, he crossed the living room, threw himself down on the couch, and rubbed his face with his hands. "Christ, Vicki, you stink of liniment. You should've gone to the hospital yourself." Behind her gla.s.ses her eyes narrowed in warning and he let it drop. Again. He had to believe she was too smart to allow machismo to cripple her. "So how did the rest of it go?"

Henry turned away from the city. The night was his again. He'd almost lost it, would have lost it had Vicki not used the ax when she had. For all he had meant nothing by it, Tawfik had been right when he'd said a man shouldn't travel alone through the years.You were the one traveling alone, old man , he told the memory of ebony eyes.And that's what killed you in the end. I have companions on the road. I have someone to guard my back. You gave up humanity for your immortality. I only gave up the day . There would be no more dreams of the sun.

He leaned back against the window, arms folded across his chest, his gaze caressing Vicki lightly on its way to Celluci's face. "Fortunately, the various ex-acolytes remembered enough of what they'd agreed to-including rather explicit hallucinations during the chanting that none of them wanted to talk about-that 'it's over, it never happened' seemed to be explanation enough. Your Inspector Cantree was the only one involved who wanted to know what was really going on. By morning, the rest of them will have convinced themselves that they were at a wild party that got a little out of hand."

"All except George Zottie," Vicki added from the armchair. "Tawfik had taken over so much of his mind that when Tawfik died he didn't have anything left. The doctors say it was a ma.s.sive stroke and he probably won't live long."

"A ma.s.sive stroke," Celluci repeated, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, and he peered across the room at Henry. "What would make them think that?"

Henry shrugged. "Well, they were hardly likely to think his brain had been magically destroyed by a three-thousand-year-old Egyptian wizard-priest trying to sanctify a temple to his G.o.d."

"Yeah? And what about that G.o.d? Tawfik's dead. Is it?"

"Of course it isn't," Vicki snapped before Henry could speak. "Or Tawfik wouldn'tbe dead."

"Look, Vicki," Celluci sighed, "pretend it's very late and that I've been up for almost forty-eight hours, which it is and I have, and explain that to me."

"Tawfik's G.o.d allowed Tawfik to die. Therefore Tawfik was no longer necessary for its survival."

"But Tawfik told me that his G.o.d only survived because of him," Henry objected. "That a G.o.d with no one to believe in it is absorbed back into good or evil."

Vicki rolled her eyes. "Tawfik's G.o.d has people who believe in it," she said slowly and distinctly. "Us.

Worship isn't necessary. Only belief."

"No, Tawfik worshiped."

"Sure he did; he sold his soul for immortality and that was his part of the bargain. But he also spent a few thousand years out cold in a sarcophagus and he sure as s.h.i.t wasn't worshiping then. His G.o.d seems to have survived just fine." She slid her gla.s.ses back up her nose. "So tonight, Tawfik does something to p.i.s.s off his G.o.d. We don't know what. Maybe it didn't approve of the venue for the temple-although any G.o.d that feeds off hopelessness and despair should find itself right at home in that meat market-maybe itdidn't like the taste of the acolytes, maybe it didn't like Tawfik's att.i.tude..."

"Tawfik wanted to be seen as all powerful," Henry said thoughtfully, remembering.

"Well, there you have it." Vicki spread her hands. "Maybe it was afraid of a temple coup. Whatever the reason, it chose to trade Tawfik in. It'd never get a better opportunity because you," she jabbed an emphatic finger in Henry's direction, "are as immortal as Tawfik was."

Celluci frowned. "Then Henry's in danger."

Vicki shrugged. "We all are. We know its name. The moment we give in to hopelessness and despair, it'll be on us like-like politicians at a free bar. It may not need worshipers to survive, but it certainly needs them to get stronger. All it has to do is convince one of us and then we tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on and here we go around the mulberry bush again. It'll want Henry, he'll last longer. But it'll settle for you or me."

"So basically what you're saying," Celluci sighed, "in your own long-winded way, is that it isn't over.

We've beaten Tawfik, but we've still got Tawfik's G.o.d to fight."

To his surprise, Vicki smiled. "We've been fighting the G.o.d of hopelessness and despair all our lives, Mike. Now, we know it has a name. So what? It's the same fight."

Then her expression changed and Celluci, who recognized trouble, shot an anxious look at Henry who apparently recognized it, too.

"And now, I have something to say to you both." Her voice should've been registered as a lethal weapon. "If either of you ever again pull the patronizing bulls.h.i.t you pulled on me tonight at the base of the tower, I'm going to rip your living hearts out and feed them to you. Do I make myself clear?"

The answering silence spoke volumes.

"Good. You can spend the next few months making it up to me."