"Now, by your own rules, you cannot harm him, " I said. "Yet it's a vampire who has given him the supernatural protection. Tell me, how to compass that? " I carried Nicki forward. And Gabrielle at once reached out to take him in her arms. He accepted this, though he stared at her as if he didn't know her and even lifted his fingers to touch her face. She took his hand away as she might the hand of a baby, and kept her eyes fixed on the leader and on me.
"If your leader has no words for you now, I have words, " I said. "Go wash yourselves in the waters of the Seine, and clothe yourselves like humans if you can remember how, and prowl among men as you are obviously meant to do. " The defeated boy vampire stumbled back into the circle, pushing roughly away those who had helped him to his feet.
"Armand, " he implored the silent auburn-haired leader. "Bring the coven to order! Armand! Save us now! "
"Why in the name of hell, " I outshouted him, "did the devil give you beauty, agility, eyes to see visions, minds to cast spells? " Their eyes were fixed on me, all of them. The gray-haired boy cried out the name "Armand " again, but in vain.
"You waste your gifts! " I said. "And worse, you waste your immortality! Nothing in all the world is so nonsensical and contradictory, save mortals, that is, who live in the grip of the superstitions of the past. " Perfect silence reigned. I could hear Nicki's slow breathing. I could feel his warmth. I could feel his numbed fascination struggling against death itself.
"Have you no cunning? " I asked the others, my-voice swelling in the stillness. "Have you no craft? How did I, an orphan, stumble upon so much possibility, when you, nurtured as you are by these evil parents,
" I broke off to stare at the leader and the furious boy, "grope like blind things under the earth? "
"The power of Satan will blast you into hell, " the boy bellowed, gathering all his remaining strength.
"You keep saying that! " I said. "And it keeps not happening, as we can all see! " Loud murmurs of assent!
"And if you really thought it would happen, " I said, "you would never have bothered to bring me here. " Louder voices in agreement.
I looked at the small forlorn figure of the leader. And all eyes turned away from me to him. Even the mad queen vampire looked at him. And in the stillness I heard him whisper:
"It is finished. " Not even the tormented ones in the wall made a sound. And the leader spoke again:
"Go now, all of you, it is at an end. "
"Armand, no! " the boy pleaded. But the others were backing away, faces concealed behind hands as they whispered. The drums were cast aside, the single torch was hung upon the wall. I watched the leader. I knew his words weren't meant to release us. And after he had silently driven out the protesting boy with the others, so that only the queen remained with him, he turned his gaze once again to me.
3
The great empty room beneath its immense dome, with only the two vampires watching us, seemed all the more ghastly, the one torch giving a feeble and gloomy light. Silently I considered: Will the others leave the cemetery, or hover at the top of the stairs? Will any of them allow me to take Nicki alive from this place? The boy will remain near, but the boy is weak; the old queen will do nothing. That leaves only the leader, really. But I must not be impulsive now. He was still staring at me and saying nothing.
"Armand? " I said respectfully. "May I address you in this way? " I drew closer, scanning him for the slightest change of expression. "You are obviously the leader. And you are the one who can explain all this to us. " But these words were a poor cover for my thoughts. I was appealing to him. I was asking him how he had led them in all this, he who appeared as ancient as the old queen, compassing some depth they would not understand. I pictured him standing before the altar of Notre Dame again, that ethereal expression on his face. And I found myself perfectly in him, and the possibility of him, this ancient one who had stood silent all this while. I think I searched him now for just an instant of human feeling! That's what I thought wisdom would reveal. And the mortal in me, the vulnerable one who had cried in the inn at the vision of the chaos, said:
"Armand, what is the meaning of all this? " It seemed the brown eyes faltered. But then the face so subtly transformed itself to rage, that I drew back. I didn't believe my senses. The sudden changes he had undergone in Notre Dame were nothing to this. And such a perfect incarnation of malice I'd never seen. Even Gabrielle moved away. She raised her right hand to shield Nicki, and I stepped back until I was beside her and our arms touched. But in the same miraculous way, the hatred melted. The face was again that of a sweet and fresh mortal boy. The old queen vampire smiled almost wanly and ran her white claws through her hair.
"You turn to me for explanations? " the leader asked. His eyes moved over Gabrielle and the dazed figure of Nicolas against her shoulder. Then returned to me.
"I could speak until the end of the world, " he said, "and I could never tell you what you have destroyed here. " I thought the old queen made some derisive sound, but I was too engaged with him, the softness of his speech and the great raging anger within.
"Since the beginning of time, " he said, "these mysteries have existed.
" He seemed small standing in this vast chamber, the voice issuing from him effortlessly, his hands limp at his sides. "Since the ancient days there have been our kind haunting the cities of man, preying upon him by night as God and the devil commanded us to do. The chosen of Satan we are, and those admitted to our ranks had first to prove themselves through a hundred crimes before the Dark Gift of immortality was given to them. " He came just a little nearer to me, the torchlight glimmering in his eyes.
"Before their loved ones they appeared to die, " he said, "and with only a small infusion of our blood did they endure the terror of the coffin as they waited for us to come. Then and only then was the Dark Gift given, and they were sealed again in the grave after, until their thirst should give them the strength to break the narrow box and rise.
" His voice grew slightly louder, more resonant.
"It was death they knew in those dark chambers, " he said. "It was death and the power of evil they understood as they rose, breaking open the coffin, and the iron doors that held them in. And pity the weak, those who couldn't break out. Those whose wails brought mortals the day after-for none would answer by night. We gave no mercy to them.
"But those who rose, ah, those were the vampires who walked the earth, tested, purified, Children of Darkness, born of a fledgling's blood, never the full power of an ancient master, so that time would bring the wisdom to use the Dark Gifts before they grew truly strong.
And on these were imposed the Rules of Darkness. To live among the dead, for we are dead things, returning always to one's own grave or one very nearly like it. To shun the places of light, luring victims away from the company of others to suffer death in unholy and haunted places. And to honor forever the power of God, the crucifix about the neck, the Sacraments. And never, never to enter the House of God, lest he strike you powerless, casting you into hell, ending your reign on earth in blazing torment. " He paused. He looked at the old queen for the first time, and it seemed, though I could not truly tell, that her face maddened him.
"You scorn these things, " he said to her. "Magnus scorned these things! " He commenced to tremble. "It was the nature of his madness, as it is the nature of yours, but I tell you, you do not understand these mysteries! You shatter them like so much glass, but you have no strength, no power save ignorance. You break and that is all. " He turned away, hesitating as if he would not go on, and looking about at the vast crypt. I heard the old vampire queen very softly singing. She was chanting something under her breath, and she began to rock back and forth, her head to one side, her eyes dreamy. Once again, she looked beautiful.