The wind was lashing me and I hated it. Maybe something of my flesh had actually been burnt off. I didn't know. I felt the wet cold in my feet, and my hands hurt so much I had to bury them in my pockets. I caught those memories again of the French winter of my last year at home, of the young mortal country lord with a bed of hay, and only the dogs for companions. All the blood in the world seemed not enough suddenly. Time to feed again, and again.
They were derelicts, all of them, lured into the icy darkness from their shacks of trash and cardboard, and doomed, or so I told myself, moaning and feasting amid the stench of rancid sweat and urine, and phlegm. But the blood was blood.
When the clocks struck ten, I was still thirsting, and victims were still plentiful, but I was tired of it, and it didn't matter anymore.
I traveled for many blocks, into the fashionable West End, and there entered a dark little shop, full of smart, finely cut garments for gentlemen-ah, the ready-made wealth of these years-and outfitted myself to my taste in gray tweed pants and belted coat, with a thick white wool sweater, and even a pair of very pale green tinted glasses with delicate gold frames. Then off I wandered, back into the chill night full of swirling snowflakes, singing to myself and doing a little tap dance under the street lamp just as I used to do for Claudia and- Slam! Bang! Up stepped this fierce and beautiful young tough with wine on his breath, divinely sleazy, who drew a knife on me, all set to murder me for the money I didn't have, which reminded me that I was a miserable thief for having just stolen a wardrobe of fine Irish clothes. Hmmm. But I was lost again in the tight hot embrace, crushing the bastard's ribs, sucking him dry as a dead rat in a summer attic, and he went down in amazement and ecstasy, one hand clutching painfully, to the very last, at my hair.
He did have some money in his pockets. What luck. I put that in the clothier's for the garments I'd taken, which seemed more than adequate when I did my arithmetic, at which I am not so good, preternatural powers or no. Then I wrote a little note of thanks, unsigned, of course. And I locked up the shop door tight with a few little telepathic twists, and off I went again.
FIVE
IT WAS striking midnight when I reached Talbot Manor. It was as if I had never seen the place before. I had time now to roam the maze in the snow, and to study the pattern of clipped shrubbery, and imagine what the garden would be come spring. Beautiful old place.
Then there were the close dark little rooms themselves, built to hold out the cold English winters, and the little lead-mullioned windows, many of which were full of light now, and most inviting in the snowy dark.
David had finished his supper, obviously, and the servants- an old man and woman-were at work still in the kitchen belowstairs while the lord changed his clothes in his bedroom on the second floor.
I watched him as he put on, over his pajamas, a long black dressing gown with black velvet lapels and sash that made him look very much like a cleric, though it was far too ornately patterned to be a cassock, especially with the white silk scarf tucked in at the neck.
Then he made his way down the stairs.
I entered by my favorite door at the end of the passage and came up beside him in the library as he bent to rake the fire.
"Ah, you did come back," he said, trying to conceal his delight, "Good Lord, but you come and go so quietly!" "Yes, it's very annoying, isn't it?" I looked at the Bible on the table, the copy of Faust, and the little short story by Lovecraft, still stapled, but smoothed out. There was David's decanter of Scotch also and a pretty thick-bottomed crystal glass.
I stared at the short story, the memory of the anxious young man coming back to me. So odd the way he moved. A vague tremor passed through me at the thought of his having spotted me in three distinctly different places. I'd probably never lay eyes on him again. On the other hand . . . But there was time to deal with this pest of a mortal. David was on my mind now, and the delicious awareness that we had the night to talk to each other.
"Wherever did you get those handsome clothes?" David asked. His eyes passed over me slowly, lingeringly, and he seemed not to notice my attention to his books.
"Oh, a little shop somewhere. I never steal the garments of my victims, if that's what you mean. And besides, I'm too addicted to lowlife and they don't dress well enough for that sort of thing."
I settled in the chair opposite his, which was my chair now, I supposed. Deep, pliant leather, creaking springs, but very comfortable, with a high winged back and broad substantial arms. His own chair did not match it but was just as good, and a little more creased and worn.
He stood before the flames, still studying me. Then he sat down too. He took the glass stopper from the crystal decanter, filled his glass, and lifted it in a little salute.
He took a deep swallow and winced slightly as the liquid obviously warmed his throat.
Suddenly, vividly, I remembered that particular sensation. I remembered being in the loft of the barn on my land in France, and drinking cognac just like that, and even making that grimace, and my mortal friend and lover, Nicki, snatching the bottle greedily from my hand.
"I see you are yourself again," David said with sudden warmth, lowering his voice slightly as he peered at me. He sat back, with the glass resting on the right arm of his chair. He looked very dignified, though far more at ease than I had ever seen him. His hair was thick and wavy, and had become a beautiful shade of dark gray.
"Do I seem myself?" I asked.
"You have that mischievous look in your eye," he answered under his breath, still scanning me intently. "There's a little smile on your lips. Won't leave for more than a second when you speak. And the skin-it makes a remarkable difference. I pray you're not in pain. You aren't, are you?"
I made a small dismissive gesture. I could hear his heartbeat. It was ever so slightly weaker than it had been in Amsterdam. Now and then it was irregular as well.
"How long will your skin stay dark like this?" he asked.
"Years, perhaps, seems one of the ancient ones told me so. Didn't I write about it in The Queen of the Damned?" I thought of Marius and how angry he was with me in genera!. How disapproving he would be of what I'd done.
"It was Maharet, your ancient red-haired one," David said. "In your book, she claimed to have done the very thing merely to darken her skin."
"What courage," I whispered. "And you don't believe in her existence, do you? Though I am sitting right here with you now."
"Oh, I do believe in her. Of course I do. I believe everything you've written. But I know you! Tell me-what actually happened in the desert? Did you really believe you would die?"
"You would ask that question, David, and right off the bat." I sighed. "Well, I can't claim that I did really believe it. I was probably playing my usual games. I swear to God I don't tell lies to others. But I lie to myself. I don't think I can die now, at least not in any way that I myself could contrive."
He let out a long sigh.
"So why aren't you afraid of dying, David? I don't mean to torment you with the old offer. I honestly can't quite figure it out. You're really, truly not afraid to die, and that I simply do not understand. Because you can die, of course."
Was he having doubts? He didn't answer immediately. Yet he seemed powerfully stimulated, I could see that. I could all but hear his brain working, though of course I couldn't hear his thoughts.
"Why the Faust play, David? Am I Mephistopheles?" I asked. "Are you Faust?"
He shook his head. "I may be Faust," he said finally, taking another drink of the Scotch, "but you're not the devil, that's perfectly clear." He gave a sigh.
"I have wrecked things for you, though, haven't I? I knew it in Amsterdam. You don't stay in the Motherhouse unless you have to. I'm not driving you mad, but I've had a very bad effect, have I not?"