Part 2 (1/2)
”She will meet a vampire... His strength will protect her from death... They will have a Power... of Sight...” Could this be? Was I her? I repeated Infester's words. ”...And he showed me these symbols,” I told Lennox. ”I think I'm her, this witch, whoever she is. It's like there's somebody else here. Like there's two of me: who I am, whoever that is, and this new person, and she... or I... is super powerfulor could be. I don't know. Promise you won't leave me. I must stay strong. Whoever is looking for me, they're going to try and take me. Lennox... When Marek gashed me, my wound healed overnight. Yet this magic, if that is what it is, is immature. I think I may be, strange as this may sound, connected, somehow, to others... like mebut they're different. I feel them calling to me.”
”What do they say?” said Lennox.
”'Come... Find us...' But what us?” I said. ”In my diary... it's all in... my diary.”
”Diary? What diary?” said Lennox.
Chapter 2 Venice.
The water was gentle. I could hear the oars working. The wooden hull creaked beneath my body, through which I could feel the current; it tore secretly beneath us, guiding he and I.
The two of us... together.
When I opened my eyes, Lennox was rowing: the muscles of his upper chest flexed; the veins stood out on his arms Like wires, like blood-filled ropes.
We were leaving Rat Rock. The stars reflected in the water. His eyes were like two Northern Lights: mysterious and elusive and ever-changing. I realized it was the lagoon algae glowing on the surface of the water, and not any fickleness in my love. His gaze penetrated to where I lay, and then he looked off, to VeniceWe were drawing nearer.
It was past Midnight, a word, somehow, that should always be capitalized. Venice's green-tinged silhouette lay before us like a collection of huge jagged rocks, thrust from nowhere. Its ancient edifices rose from the lagoon like bewitched stone. I could see towers and tunnels, and secret, hidden places, where no one should go; which was precisely where we were headed. To the vampires who made it their home.
Nervousness had been replaced by uncertainty; both for myself and for the world I had imagined and our place within it. Suddenly everything was being jeopardized. I didn't like it. It p.i.s.sed me off. As for Lennox, I could see him steel himself; there was something going on with him more than just our Fate.
I had never before seen him so contemplative and like a statue. Like the mysteries of the world somehow came down and sat upon his brow. He was enc.u.mbered with more thoughts than I could count. Plus there was the Agonies.
Our little boat battled along. We avoided the main artery, the Grand Ca.n.a.l, that snaked through the impossibly-constructed city.
Beautiful, delicate ribbonworks of orange gla.s.s stood out from false balconies, as we navigated the minute chambers of water. Footpaths ran alongside the ca.n.a.ls we were in, and storybook bridges shot above us like rainbows. There were strange openings, many of which were concealed behind rusted iron bars, in the sides of the buildings; they leaned this way and that. There were small gardens in the air. They threw out leafy vines, that crawled along the rosy bricks and crumbling plaster. Towering campaniles with lighted rooftops, festooned with gargoyles and other Renaissance architectural flourishes, soared above us.
The moon disappeared and reappeared. We were traveling deeper into the heart of Venice. It was quiet out. Lennox and I could hear crowds of people, but they were far away, in some other, more populace, part of Venice.
Empty gondolas and other boats were lashed to wooden piles that broke from the murky depths of the ca.n.a.l we were in; they bobbed in the current, making small b.u.mps and sc.r.a.ping noises as they hit one another and the sides of the buildings.
The ca.n.a.l would open up, and then it was like we were in a fis.h.i.+ng village, with a myriad multicolor lights dancing on the surface of the water, and then it would close in, and the fog would obscure us.
I had seen supertankers on the outskirts of the city; we were comparatively insignificant.
That was exactly how I liked it.
Lennox worked, taking us deeper into Venice.
Everywhere I looked were the most interesting sculptures: cherubs, and angels fallen from grace, and lions, men on horseback, battling hydras; flowers marked some sculptures like they were graves; there was even a giant alligator. It was Lennox himself who was the most impressive.
Time would not age him. I saw him sitting there, a beautiful angel, not cracked and crumbling like the other sculptures around him, but eternal, crafted by the hand of an artist, and I so ephemeral; he would outlive me by lifetimes; by lifetimes of lifetimes, so far into the future that countless new lives would replace the memory of the one he and I had shared together.
”What are you looking at?” he said.
”You.”
I saw my diary, then, sitting at his feet. We had taken nothing else. He sat in the bow, looking at it. I grabbed it in my panic. ”You're not reading that, are you?” I said.
”No,” he said.
I relaxed. ”I feel different, somehow. Like I'm changing,” I said. I flipped through my diary. There was a drawing in there. Of a monster, the one that was hunting me.
I had executed it with a thick charcoal pencil, extracting the form from the negative s.p.a.ce: a pair of watchful dark eyes.
”We take very little to Rat Rock,” said Lennox. ”And take nothing when we leave.”
I a.s.sumed he meant Dallace and Camille and himself.
”Do they know we're coming?” I asked.
”Camille can sense it,” said Lennox.
”That's something that might be called a power,” I said. ”You know, what you're so reticent about describing to me.”
He laughed. ”The last thing I want is for you to get too comfortable with vampires,” he said.
”Never!” I said as dramatically as possible.
We were there. The stones were slick from the mist and fog. An expensive-looking motor boat with wooden panels sat docked at the bulwark. A tarpaulin covered it. I could just make out the name. Bellezza Immortale.
Immortal Beauty.
A set of steps crawled from the water. Dark angles cut the grid of ca.n.a.lsleaving this place suspended in a world unto itself, between time. Anything well-aged and useful merited my respect; which translated to a love of Italian doors. They were so solid and beautiful, and they often contained little hints as to what lay inside.
This one had a quatrefoil carved into the black and aged wood, a simple series of four rings, I took to be symbolical, and a knocker, in the shape of a lion's head.
The building itself was imposing. Two towers rose behind a large stone wall, through which a set of rusty iron gates sat, either inviting or imperious, I couldn't be sure, on their half-closed hinges. It was a kind of throughway to the bright lights that shone from the large panes of arched gla.s.s. Stone columns led from a kind of inner garden. Over everything a leafy green glow manifested itself. Even in the middle of the night.
It felt alive, yet sacred; the fusing of two fundamentally distinct concepts: the eternal and the now; the old and the new.
”We're here.”
I didn't know if it was my heart knocking, or else Lennox hitting the side of the bulwark, with our little boat. He lashed it to the bollard.
”Are you nervous?” he said. ”Don't be.”
I gulped in response.
You're okay, you can do this, I told myself. I watched Lennox, lost inside himself; then he came out of it. Two vampires were standing at the iron gates.
My first impression was that they were identical, almost brother and sisterthe same, yet differentso completely did they complement the other.
It was only when I got over the awe of their sudden arrival, that I noticed the differences.
They were both predatorythat was evident immediately; but their stillness suggested they were on their very best behavior. The manif you could call him thatwas almost identical to the cla.s.sic male models in any glamor magazine. He had a perfect shaped jaw, and high chiseled cheeks. His eyes were comely and aloof, belying an intense speculative interest. And of course he was perfectly featured throughout.