Vampire Vow Page 2

  "Stop talking in riddles." I grabbed her arm, and she snapped her face away away from me.

  "I promise, Lieutenant, I would not resort to tricks. What I offer is too grave for games. But you must not look at me."

  "Why? I doubt you're afraid of a man's eyes, from the looks of you. Why do you hide from the sunlight? Why is the shop as dark as a prison? Why do you cower here like a rat?"

  "You must trust me, my Lord. There is no other way." She continued to face the darkness.

  "Proceed." I released her arm and turned back to the mirror.

  Without loss of poise she resumed her attitude before the glass. "What I have for you, you shall receive with no small pleasure. But again, you must trust me. I've waited long for you. I have seen you coming for an eternity. You're the first in an age. Without you I would shrivel and die. Stop!" She raised her hand when she perceived my impatience. Rings of rubies and polished jade glistened on her fingers. "You will understand soon enough. First, drink this." She reached for a silver ewer on a table and poured from it into a cup, which she handed me.

  I sniffed it.

  "There is nothing magical about it," she said. "It's merely a strong liquor to relax your resistance to my words. I speak the truth. Drink."

  I did as she bid and very soon breathed more easily. The flame of a lamp transfixed me and I felt as though I lay in the sun after a swimming race in the sea. She slipped off her robe to show me her black breasts, round and full as silky pouches of spring water, waiting to be tasted by a parched desert nomad. Then she stood and let her garment drop to the floor. Her ebony body gleamed. Her ringed fingers touched my cheeks, guided me to her belly, which smelled of musk and sweet oil.

  "Ah, this is all, wench? You want me to hump you?" I pulled her to the dirt floor. She moaned when my swollen cock sank into her warm, moist cunt. She moaned more as I pumped her, first slow, then hard, then slow to heighten my pleasure. All the while she kept her face turned from me.

  The ride affected me like the opium I'd once taken in Rome, producing a trancelike calm together with a keen, excited euphoria spreading from my loins through my body the way the heat of liquor in the stomach finally flushes the face.

  She guided my mouth to her breast. My heart pounded as the brown nipple stiffened. At first I imagined that milk flowed from the breast, then I tasted something else, something warm and potent, something as rich and red as the wine of Capri, as exhilarating as a slash made by an opponent's dagger. When the liquid streamed down my chin, when I saw the stained breasts of the seer, I swallowed greedily. There was no stopping. The euphoria mounted.

  I felt myself soar over the walls of the city on a moonlit night, over wells and courtyards, over crumbling stone dwellings wedged together on filthy streets. Below, lithe girls beckoned to me. Fair boys called for me to mount them. Amid them stood Joshu.

  "So you see me, Victor!" he called from a rooftop garden. "You've discovered the power. But I promise, it will only trap you on the wrong side of eternity."

  I soared round the roof, tried to light on its tiles, but could not descend. I was like a granule of chaff battling a whirlwind, while the palms below remained immobile in the silvered moonlight.

  "You can't approach me, Victor. Believe me. Turn from her!" Joshu was as clear and distinct as a crow on white sand. None of the haziness of dreams obscured him, and I felt no awareness—as we often do in dreams—that what I saw would vanish if I willed myself awake. I was there, with him.

  "Don't believe him, my lord." The seer's words burst into my mind, but I saw nothing of her as I soared, though the sensation of our coupling continued and I continued to taste blood in my mouth. "I am the way," she said. "Remember that. I am the truth."

  "She mocks me. She mocks God," Joshu called.

  "I will have you " I said. "I feel it. I feel it."

  "You feel her."

  "Enough for now, my lord." She pushed my lips from her breast. "More later if you like."

  I was drenched with sweat, while she remained dry. The stain had disappeared from her breasts. I rolled off her to catch my breath.

  "There's more, my lord. Why worry about your rage? You can find him whenever you like. And you can have much more besides. Much more." She propped her head on her elbow. In the shadows she had no need to turn her face away.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Come here again when you are ready to die."

  "Are you raving mad, sorceress bitch?" I reached over and grabbed her throat. "I could strangle you now and leave you in this pit."

  Suddenly a vise seemed to crush my hand, though I saw no culprit. I cried out in pain and tried, to no avail, to release myself.

  "Remember what I've said, Lieutenant. I am the way. When you are willing to leave the world of the living I will take you to a place where you can be master of all. Even him."

  My hand was freed from the invisible grip. Tiresia stood and, without moving toward her garments, was clothed.

  "I want to see him again." I lay on the cold dirt, nursing my hand.

  "You will not return here until you are prepared to stay."

  She seated herself once again before the mirror and watched me stand and grope my way back through the dark corridor.

  Chapter Five

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  For weeks I could not escape the vision of Joshu on the rooftop, the sweet, powerful sensation I'd felt. I became convinced that had I remained with him longer I could have reached him, embraced him. And that locked in my arms, he could not have resisted me. I wrestled with the officers in Pilate's game hall, I drank myself to oblivion, I worked the whores and the boys who attended me. At night I paced the labyrinth of Jerusalem's narrow streets. Nothing relieved the restlessness.

  I approached Tiresia's shop several times, once intending to feign agreement with her demands, but always the force I had felt on my hand returned, causing me to wince and massage my fingers. Unable to shake the invisible grip, I retreated.

  My temper flared again and again. When my secretary misplaced a scroll, I beat him until he wept. When I found my chamber pot unemptied after breakfast, I shoved my servant's face in it. I raised my sword to a harlot when I found bloody discharge draining from her slit and made her beg for her life before I retreated from her house.

  As long as I vented my rage on servants and whores, I stayed in Pilate's graces. But my restlessness reached feverish heights, and finally, delirium obliterated good sense.

  The boy was a Jew. I had spotted him during a military parade near Herod's palace. Long-limbed, like a gazelle, he sunned himself on a wall, captivated by the glinting silver and plumage of our uniforms.

  "You called me, sir?" He had come to my chamber, brought by the soldier I'd sent to retrieve him.

  "Approach me, boy." I lay on my couch, surveying his soft features framed by black ringlets. "Closer. That's right." I fondled his woolen cloak. "What are you called?"

  "Benjamin, sir." He stared straight ahead, out the window, not daring to drop his eyes to mine.

  "Take off your cloak."

  "Sir?"

  "It's warm enough in here with the fire. Remove your cloak. There, that's better."

  He was lean but solid. His neck rose like a delicate pedestal from his robe.

  "Are you breaking some religious edict by being here? Never mind. You shouldn't worry your conscience. You had no choice. If you hadn't come… Do you have a family of some kind?"

  "Sir?" He suddenly looked anxious.

  "Oh, come now. I'm only asking from interest. I won't butcher them." I caressed his arm. My sense of protectiveness excited me.

  "I have a mother, sir. A widow. She spends most of the day in prayer in the temple courts."

  "Some kind of holy woman, I suppose."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Who looks after you? You can't be more than 14."

  "I stay with my father's people, sir. They are potters."

  "Ah, you've got good hands for that trade." I turned his hands over and
examined the palms. "Sit here on my couch."

  "Please, sir. I couldn't."

  "But I command it." I pulled him to me. "Do you know what I want you for?"

  "Do you want pottery, sir?"

  "Look at me. Look at me, damn you!"

  He looked at me as though I were going to recircumcise him.

  "Do I look like I want pottery?"

  "I don't know, sir."

  Once he did know, he submitted like a lamb, stupidly following my directions without a sign of struggle. To break a boy in, to rob him of what most Jewish men never imagine surrendering, invigorated me more than a winter swim. When I was satisfied, I told him to dress and summoned my man.

  "You'll breathe a word of this to no one, boy. For your family's sake. I warn you."

  "Yes, sir." The boy stared blankly at me, as though stunned by days of exposure in the Judaean desert.

  "Escort him to the gate," I said to my man, who had learned discretion from me the hard way.

  The boy kept his word well. When his cousins tried to pry information from him, he kept silent. He lost his appetite, grew thin, stopped sleeping, ruined the pitchers and vases he was creating, burnt himself on the kiln. Then one day his cousin found him dangling from a tree, like an old woman's rug thrown up to dry. He'd hanged himself after his mother, the wise bitch of a prophetess, guessed his shameful secret.

  A delegation from the Sanhedrin stood before Pilate the next day. The results, I knew, would be imprisonment for me in Pilate's clammy cells, reserved for debauched or inept officers, followed by demotion, which would mean marching with the foot soldiers during military parades—to the satisfaction of the slimy priests on the sidelines.

  Unbearable? Not for some. But I knew punishment like that would ignite my fury. Like the baited cheetah in the Roman circus, I'd tear apart my tormentors, dooming myself to longer imprisonment.

  I fled the palace before Pilate could send his guards for me.

  Chapter Six

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  In the whorehouse where I hid, incense burned night and day to camouflage the piss splattered in the corridors and courtyard by drunk patrons. The women painted their faces at night and floated up and down the halls in transparent silks, like ghosts, ghosts who returned to their grave beds by day. Not that customers did not demand service in the hours of sunlight—even pious Jews felt safe, knowing none of their kind ever showed his face in a neighborhood that would leave him ritually unclean. Then a ghost would be summoned from her grave by the shriveled mistress and display herself at the door, pale and naked, her eyes glassy and ringed by shadow.

  The life of the night suited me to a degree. Hooded and cloaked, I wandered freely through the black city and returned each dawn to pleasures of a new whore. But I was an officer, accustomed to showing off my physique, my badges, accustomed to dramatic displays of homage from miserable peons, accustomed to taking what I liked. My agitation became unbearable, as though I were subjected to a shrill, incessant flute. I considered escaping to Egypt or stowing away on a boat to Rome. But now I was a wanted man. News would reach Egypt and Rome before I was halfway to either place. In hiding or on the run, I could never live the life I deserved.

  My thoughts wandered often to Tiresia's proposal. One night, after working a whore to a sweat, I interrogated her about the seer.

  "I know nothing about her, sir. She's not one of us. We know all the competition." The girl was 16 at most, but already possessed of the jaded, weary expression that marked all whores. She sat on the floor, her head resting in her arms on the foot of the cot, after performing her finale. Candlelight flickered on her alabaster back.

  "Don't tell me you've never seen the woman. Ethiopian or something. Black as the bottom of a cooking pot. She lives less than half a league from here." I lay naked on the cot, my hands behind my head.

  "I swear, sir."

  "What about the others? Surely they've seen her. Talked of her."

  "It's possible, but they tell me nothing. I'm too new to be included."

  "Yes. I'll bet they make piles of denarü on you." I touched her cheek with the ball of my foot. "I want you to talk to them at any rate. Get the information from your mistress. Tell her there's money in it for her."

  "Yes, sir." The girl said it as though approaching her mistress meant abuse for her, regardless of profit to the proprietress.

  The next night, I got an answer I hadn't counted on—a contingent of Pilate's crew bearing shackles for me. Incensed at my inquiries about what she believed must have been a rival brothel, the mistress had arranged for my arrest. Fortunately the girl whore had taken a perverted liking to me. She flung open my door just after midnight.

  "They're coming for you. Run, sir." Her chest heaved. Horror widened her normally listless eyes. She disappeared across the courtyard, a whirl of white.

  Grabbing my tunic and a sack of gear, I climbed out the window and hurdled a low gate. Drawn by a force as strong as lust, I sprinted through alleys and back streets to the seer's house. This time I met no resistance to my entry.

  "Welcome, Lieutenant." Tiresia sat enthroned in her place before the mirror, her reflection glimmering softly in lamplight.

  "Who are you?" I demanded, panting at the doorway of the shadowy chamber.

  Tiresia laughed and stroked the colored beads in her hair. "Oh, Lieutenant. Your nature will serve you well on this side of the night."

  "Face me!" I flung down my bag and approached her, but thought better of clutching her after the hand-crushing I'd received before.

  "You are prepared now to join the league of the night? You've destroyed hopes for success in a mortal life."

  "I'm here to hide, wench, and nothing more." I sank onto a bench and wiped the sweat from my brow. A rat scurried along the wall and vanished behind broken furniture and piles of rags.

  She raised her head and studied me from beneath her heavy eyelids. "When you emerge from this house, Lieutenant, you will never hide again. You've only tasted what I can give you. Wait until you feel the full pleasure of complete power over mortals, the ability to travel, to soar over continents at the speed of thought. Wait until you can crush whom you please with impunity, command anyone you will."

  "What about him? The one I have wanted to taste as I have wanted no other."

  "Why do you want him?" She seemed displeased.

  "Why? If you know so much, you must know why."

  "I know all about him. But do you?"

  "More riddles." Impatient, I rose and peered down the corridor. Then I turned to her. "He's told me I'll never approach him. He's told me you lie."

  "Of course. He wishes to keep you away."

  "But I desire him. I want him as my beloved. And he desires me in return. I know it."

  "Exactly, my dear Lieutenant. He sees you as a test of his faith."

  "Damn this god he imagines. A moment with me will turn him into an apostate."

  Tiresia smiled. She dropped the robe from her raven shoulders. Her breasts, nipples purple in the lamplight, rose and fell as she breathed, like floats on a calm sea. "Come to me."

  Heated by her charms, I stripped, spread my cloak over the cold earthen floor for her to lie on, and mounted her. Once again she turned her face to the shadows.

  "Why me?" I asked in the midst of her moans. "Why not the others, the officers who've come for your potions?"

  "Oh, my lieutenant." She clutched my buttocks to drive me more deeply into her. "There were no others. The words…were planted in their minds." Groaning with delight, she guided my lips to her breast. "Drink, my Victor. Drink."

  The warm blood oozed from her nipple. The sight of it maddened me. I lapped it up like a starving dog. I sucked long and hard, until my whole body became as engorged with blood as my cock. The sensation I'd felt before returned, the strange sense of euphoria mixed with acute vision and heightened power. I could have strangled a bull with my bare hands.

  "Yes, Victor. Keep drinking. You mustn't stop this time."


  I had pulled away from her to get my breath, as though we'd been locked in a kiss of passion. She pulled me back to the wet teat.

  "Drink and live."

  Suddenly a pain shot through my skull and then concentrated in my eyes. They pounded. I thought they would explode in my head. But despite the torture, I clung to Tiresia's supple body. My loins continued to hammer against hers at a furious pace. Then, like a fountain, the seer's breast poured forth liquid that was no longer hot and salty, but cool and refreshing—blood still, but a chilled elixir that somehow dulled my pain.

  My sense of strength redoubled. I felt like a man charged with superhuman energy in a time of disaster, mighty enough to lift a block of granite from a worker crushed beneath it. I soared as I had soared in our last encounter, above the tiled roofs, the palms and walls of Jerusalem. Higher and higher. Through clouds. Toward a sliver of moon. Toward blackness—not empty, but full of creatures, heads and hands and limbs. The beings peered at me from behind treelike shadows.

  "You are approaching it, Victor." Tiresia whispered into my ear. "Ah, yes. You're almost there."

  But where? By the gods, where?

  The sweat that had soaked me as our mad coupling began suddenly evaporated. My skin tingled, cool and taut. I was aware of every inch of my body and at the same time attuned to the darkness around me as I soared.

  Tiresia laughed. "This is the beginning of time, Lieutenant. My time, my birth into the night. You are returning me here to reign. I have proven myself. It has taken centuries, since the time of the great Sphinx, but it is finished. Now I join the court of darkness." Lightning ripped through the night. I could see Tiresia distinctly next to me. Her garments fluttered in a whirlwind as she flew. Her beautiful face had become translucent. The beads in her hair shimmered like precious stones. Other figures, robed, crowned, surrounded her in the air. They caressed her face with long, tapered fingers. They deposited a crown upon her head and carried her away, fading into the blackness.