Bloodliner (12 page)

"Torture has its place in our dark world," said Shakespeare, "but consider this. Do we know exactly what the rabbits must do to crack the prize? Can we say for certain that their state of mind won't matter, that duress will not prevent them from obtaining what we seek?"

"'Duress?'" Thomas swung around in another swift circle. "What the hell is that?"

"Being forced against your will," said Shakespeare. "Do you think whoever locked away the prize would not expect someone to try to force it from its rightful owner?"

"No," said Thomas.

Shakespeare squinted at the distant specks, which by their bobbing motion seemed to ride on massive wings. Certain now of their size and threat level, he decided the time had come for preemptive action.

"I agree." With graceful strokes of his own wide wings, Shakespeare started toward the specks. "Do you see now why torture might be best held in reserve? Why the better course would be to drive a wedge between the players, so they'll willingly provide us with our prize?"

Thomas drew up alongside him. "Yes," he said. "I do."

Shakespeare was surprised. Instead of the obscenity-laced argument he'd expected, Thomas had accepted his opinion. Or seemed to, at least.

Perhaps he has a rationality as strong as James', just as I'd hoped, waiting only for the proper coaxing to emerge. That plays to my theory that one twin can be saved as well as the other, thanks to certain fundamental similarities.

Or perhaps he's only acting, so that I will drop my guard. So there's the rub. If he indeed is reaching out in earnest, I cannot turn away...but I must guard against betrayal all the while.

"So we don't kill King Arthur," said Thomas.

"Not yet." Shakespeare shook his head. "The time will come when we must move him off the table, though our power might not be enough to kill him even then."

"You think
they
could kill him?" Thomas pointed at the approaching formation of winged specks.

They were close enough now that Shakespeare saw what they were—not specks, but a flight of gleaming silver dragons. A dozen of them raced for Camelot, each metal monster nearly the size of the castle itself.

"They might kill our rabbits in the battle," said Shakespeare. "They could cost us our prize forever."

"The hell with
that
," said Thomas.

"That's why we'll stop them," said Shakespeare. "You and I will strike like bombs and drive them back away from Camelot."

"What kind of bombs?" said Thomas.

"Nuclear." Shakespeare grinned. "You've not seen me go all out yet, have you, Thomas?"

"How the hell should I know?" said Thomas. "Have I?"

"Think pure thoughts, Thomas." Shakespeare chuckled. "The following scenes may be disturbing for some viewers."

*****

 

Chapter 29

"King Arthur wasn't a vampire," said Mavis.

"How else do you think I achieved such great feats?" said Arthur.

With that, he suddenly charged across the floor.

Before Mavis could think to run away, Arthur launched himself into the air. The leap carried him almost to the distant ceiling, which had to be at least fifty feet above.

Arthur spun around in midair, sweeping his sword from its scabbard as he sprang out of the somersault. He dove straight down, headfirst, slashing the sword in wild patterns that left gleaming afterimages hanging in the air.

At the last second before striking the floor, he whipped around and landed lightly on his toes, just a few feet away from Mavis and Jonah.

Before Mavis knew what was happening, Arthur had snagged her hand. He bowed and kissed it, then let go and straightened with a grin.

"None could stand against me." Arthur slashed his sword through the air with a flourish. "All it took was my blade, Excalibur, and a solid suit of armor to keep the spears and arrows away from my heart."

Mavis shook her head.

This is crazy. I'm actually starting to believe him.

"Then why haven't I ever heard of King Arthur being a vampire?" she said.

"We didn't really advertise it," said Arthur. "I was discreet."

"How is that even possible?" said Mavis. "You drank people's
blood
."

"Blood was a lot easier to come by in those days," said Arthur. "They were violent times."

Jonah was walking in circles, scrubbing his fingers through his white hair. "This is bizarre. Even compared to all the other crazy stuff we've been through, this is nuts."

"I don't know, Arthur," said Mavis. "All we have is your word for it."

"And the word of another." Arthur did a sudden backflip, spinning three times in midair before landing with his feet on the hilt of his sword. He and the sword were balanced perfectly, the point of the blade resting in the mouth of a dragon painted on the floor. "Ask Stanza. She was there at the beginning."

Mavis folded her arms over her chest and looked at Stanza. "Now that's just crazy."

Stanza shrugged. "Yes, it is."

"So that would make you what?" said Jonah. "A thousand years old?"

"At least," said Stanza.

"You don't look a day over thirty." Mavis' voice had a sarcastic edge. "Thirty-five tops."

"Be that as it may," said Stanza, "it's true. We're in Camelot, and he
is
King Arthur."

"But how could you be that old, Stanza?" Jonah frowned and shook his head. "You said you're not a vampire, right?"

"I also said I'm not normal. Let's leave it at that." Stanza turned to Arthur. "Now can we get to the Garden of Tears, your majesty? Time's running out."

"Running out till what?" said Mavis.

Arthur smiled cryptically. "Wouldn't want you to be trapped here for a hundred years or anything." Then, he leaped from the sword and ran across the Great Hall. "Follow me!"

A hundred years?

Mavis and Jonah looked at each other with horrified expressions, then ran to catch up with Arthur.

*****

 

Chapter 30

"Tread softly," said Arthur, but he didn't really need to say it.

As Mavis passed through the doorway, she saw quite clearly that she had entered a place of great fragility.

Please God, don't let me sneeze in here.

The Garden of Tears lay before her, shimmering and shivering in a huge, vaulted chamber.

The Garden looked as if it were literally made of tears. Tiny droplets of clear, multicolored liquid formed blossoms of every shape and size. Each petal, each leaf, each stem, consisted of dozens or hundreds or thousands of tiny fluid beads, glistening in the glow that emanated from the walls and ceiling.

Beautiful.
This might be the most beautiful place I've ever seen.

Arthur followed a path that looked like a ribbon of ice...but when Mavis followed, it wasn't the slightest bit slippery underfoot.

The path wound among rows of low flowers with small, round petals, shaded alternately pink and purple. Next, Mavis passed bigger blooms of yellow and orange that stood as high as her waist and wobbled in her wake.

All of them were made of clusters of tiny droplets.

"What is this place?" said Mavis.

"A library," said Stanza. "A secret archive."

"The tears of vampires are rare," said Arthur, "and they tell stories. These are the tears of the vampires who have lived in Lyonesse, and their stories are held within."

Mavis bent and stared at a pale blue blossom, as big as her hand, with a white, diamond-shaped heart. "How do you read these stories?"

"You taste them." Arthur drew a slender glass tube, a pipette six inches long and no thicker than a pipe cleaner, from within his rough tunic. He turned to a large, red flower and lightly dabbed one drop of one petal with the tip of the pipette.

Then, he extended the pipette toward Mavis.

"Stick out your tongue," he told her.

Mavis looked at Stanza, who nodded. Jonah just shrugged.

I must be out of my mind.

Mavis opened her mouth and eased out her tongue as instructed.

Arthur tapped the pipette, and Mavis felt a tiny drop of liquid touch her tongue. It tasted salty.

"Now what?" she said.

Suddenly, her surroundings changed. The Garden of Tears and the people within it flicked away, replaced by something new.

Mavis found herself in a cage, surrounded by iron bars. She kneeled in foul-smelling straw, and she was chained.

A heavy metal collar encircled her throat. Manacles were clamped tightly around her wrists and ankles. The collar and manacles were connected by thick chains to a huge metal ring mounted in the floor.

Somehow, she knew that her name was June, and she was the star attraction in a circus sideshow.

Step right up. See the bloodsucking monster.

Her three children had been killed by the men who had raided her lair...but her husband, Gregory, had escaped. Her captors had called him a coward, but June had known better.

He went to get help.

"Feeding time, animal." One of the men who had kidnapped her walked into the tent. He carried a clay pitcher filled with...

Blood! I can smell it from here!

The man opened the door of her cage and stepped inside, proffering the pitcher. "Just what you're hungry for, eh? This'll hit the spot."

I haven't eaten in days.

When June reached for the pitcher, the man snatched it away. "Can't have it, animal." He poured out half the contents into the straw, just out of her reach. "Unless you beg for it just right."

June's spirit died. She had not thought she could hate the man and his friends any more than she already did.

And the worst part was, she was considering doing what he told her.

"P-please," she said, trembling.

Grinning, the man set the pitcher down just outside the cage door. As he turned, he unzipped his pants.

"I heard you people do things no human woman knows how to do." He dropped his pants and stayed out of her reach. "Heard you can please a man without even touching him. Some kind of blood magic.

"I want you to do that to me."

Seconds later, Gregory and three other vampires dragged him out of the cage and tore him to pieces.

"Thank God," June said as the tears poured from her. "Oh, thank God."

Then, just as suddenly as the scene had come to life, it vanished from Mavis' senses. It blinked away, replaced by the Garden, Arthur, Stanza, and Jonah.

"She's back," said Arthur, staring intently into her eyes. "Back from yesterday."

"So what was the story about?" said Stanza. "The one you tasted?"

"Hell," said Mavis. "It was about Hell."

*****

 

Chapter 31

After tasting dozens of droplets in the Garden of Tears, Arthur dabbed a deep green teardrop with his glass pipette. "This is it," he said. "This is the one we've been looking for. The tears of your great-great-great-great grandfather."

"So he was a vampire, too." Jonah sighed and shook his head. "And you want me to taste his tears and take a head trip into the past. To find some kind of clue to what we're looking for...whatever that is." He shot a glance in Stanza's direction.

"I'll taste them, too," said Stanza. "I'll catch whatever clues you might miss."

"Could you at least give me
some
idea of what we're after here?" said Jonah.

"We want to
find
this ancestor, if he's still alive." Stanza pointed at the pipette in Arthur's hand. "He's Mother Nothing's grandfather, her father's father. She said he was a vampire, so he might still be alive out there somewhere...and if he is, we need clues to where exactly we might find him."

"And you think we'll get all that from one little teardrop?" said Jonah.

"The possibilities are endless," said Arthur. "You could find a single moment...or an entire lifetime. Whatever was foremost in the vampire's mind when he cried that tear."

"Your Majesty," said Stanza. "May we begin? Time is short."

"Very well." Arthur tapped a drop from the pipette onto Stanza's tongue, then turned to Jonah. "Ready?"

Jonah stepped up nervously and nodded.

"Just remember," said Arthur. "You might not like what you see."

Jonah shrugged. "I'm ready."

Arthur tapped out a drop on Jonah's tongue, too.

And everything changed. The bright chamber with its fragile liquid garden became a misty night-time field echoing with screams.

October 17, 1813.

"Doctor!" said a voice from nearby. "Please come!"

Jonah knew that the voice was speaking German, and he understood it because he was German now, too.