Part 8 (2/2)
Yeah, man.
Alek collapsed at the foot of the carousel and wrapped his arms around himself and arched his back. His scream was a sword, narrow, deadly, penetrating, and for a moment all his whiteness of flesh flushed red as though his skin had turned to crystal and his blood shone through like light in a cathedral window. Then he sagged forward, forehead touching the stage of animals like a man whose soul had come out with his cry and left him an empty sh.e.l.l.
”Alek Knight.”
Painfully his eyes moved to meet those of the speaker. She was seated on the edge of the stage like a beautiful and expensive porcelain doll some child had placed there and forgotten. He did not fear her; what had he to fear as d.a.m.ned as he was? ”Eustace,” he wept, running his hands through his hair, pulling at it like a madman. ”Oh Christ, Eustace. Eustace...”
Judas, he thought, a second scream within. Cain.
She did not smile; nor did she make any move to take him, now, at his most desperate moment. She did not give him even that. ”Why did you kill the slayer?” she asked him politely instead.
He wept and did not answer her. And all this time they'd said it was Sean. They'd all but branded the word on the young one's forehead and cut his cheeks to mark him. But it wasn't him. No, it wasn't. Because the real Judas already wore his mark over his pulse and it was the mark of Covenmaster. How had this happened? How?
”Alek Knight, so full of regret...” the creature singsonged. ”Regret nothing, for regret is a useless emotion.”
”I've sinned,” he groaned. Oh, G.o.d, have I sinned...
”You've sinned before. You mean you've sinned against the Coven.”
He closed his eyes and saw again the sword burying itself in soft white throatflesh, the redness and the heat and the scream like a wire pulled tight as a migraine across his mind. ”I'm the Judas! I was to be Covenmaster after Amadeus,” he sobbed.
”And do you wish to be Covenmaster?”
”You talk funny. Shut up. You make me think of--of the--the f.u.c.king social workers in the Home!”
”Debra. You meant to say Debra.”
”No, I didn't. Get the f.u.c.k outta my head!”
He caught himself, calmed his hysteria. Why in living h.e.l.l was he arguing with this thing? Why had she followed him? Why was she torturing him like this? Why? And why the h.e.l.l wasn't she killing him or leaving him the h.e.l.l alone? Why wouldn't anyone leave him the G.o.dd.a.m.n h.e.l.l alone?
”Don't lie to me, caro mio. I've glimpsed the naked side of your soul. You cannot lie to me after such an intimacy.” She reached for his hand, and to his amazement he found himself allowing her to take it as she had taken the rest of him, his mind, his empty soul. She held it a moment, watched him with her dark, intense stillness. Then she turned his palm over, read it like a Gypsy wisewoman. ”You have no lifetime,”
she said.
”I'm dead.”
”Vampire.”
”No. Yes. No!. You're the vampire,” he spat at this persistently annoying little demon.
”And Amadeus?”
”Amadeus is--”
”The greatest vampire,” she said. ”His eyes are dark, Alek Knight. He knows.”
”He'll kill me.”
She smiled over his palm. ”No. He won't.”
He yanked back his hand. ”Jesus, who are you?”
She smiled, her face flus.h.i.+ng like shadowed porcelain, full of secrets. For a moment all the world s.h.i.+fted around them and again she was the Debra clone, the saintly, bone-jarring, sensual image. ”I am peace. I am beauty. I am death. But you may call me Sister Teresa.”
”I'll kill you,” he spat to hurt her, this beautiful little monster with her honest eyes and evil powers, ”like I killed a hundred of your kind on a hundred other nights like this one.”
Her smile never faltered. ”Yes, all right. Kill me too. Now.”
He looked at her; he looked away. ”I lost my sword.”
”Then take me with your lips and your hands and your words. Release me as you released the other--”
”Why are you tormenting me?” he screamed into the dark.
”Torment makes pain. Pain makes you strong; pain also breaks you.”
”Is that what you want? To break me before you kill me?”
”Don't be too strong to be weak, Alek Knight.”
He shook his head, furious, helpless. Broken. ”Go away. Just go the h.e.l.l far away. Go! I'm giving you a respite, only don't make me look at you another moment.”
”And what will you do with me gone?”
He did not answer. Why should he?
”I see,” she said. ”You will return to your great mausoleum and look on the face of your master and he will destroy you and only your skull will remain to crown your infernal Babel. You cannot allow this to happen, Alek Knight.”
”It's what I deserve,” he insisted.
”But I need you.”
He felt something seize him from within. A memory--Debra's mischievous smile. ”What the h.e.l.l do you mean?”
She took his face in her hands, but now there was no pain, no memories. Only her. Only beauty. Only that.
She kissed him with her knowledgeable little mouth as if she would seduce him to his death. She tasted red.
Debra. She said, ”I am old in the way of continents and languages. I remember the Black Death. I have walked with the cursed children of Lilith since before the Crusades,” she said. ”So old, Alek Knight, and in all those years I kept the secrets of the church.” She lowered her eyes. ”But then came the knowledge- seekers and the powermongers and it was impossible to tell the difference and they took from me the truth, and that truth they corrupted and scribed wrongly. My work, my purpose, was undone. And the greatest among them built up a cache of lies and perpetuated their power upon which to establish his kingdom--” He jerked away from her, folded his arms on the stage and let his face fall down upon them. That d.a.m.ned Chronicle or whatever the h.e.l.l it was. That story again. ”Oh G.o.d, don't say this. Don't start--”
”You don't believe.” She paused reflectively. ”But of course--you are caught up in the web--”
”What am I supposed to believe? That some f.u.c.king book out there exists that can destroy the Coven?”
”Debra believed in the story.”
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