Part 29 (1/2)
”Uncle, try to talk Matilda out of doing such heavy work.”
Cecelia strained to hear his voice. Whispers, garbled whispers that hinted at annoyance. He knew. He had scented her without being told. The girl willed her mentor to come to her. Instead he seemed to draw away from her, separating himself into another dimension, one she had not yet entered.
”Ah! Madame! My niece told me of your plans. How silly. We do not expect you to do the heavy housework. We will call in several husky men to wash and hang the rugs.”
He appeared as a vision haloed by the musk of the outdoors.
”But you don't like having strangers in the house,” said Cecelia.
Had she truly spoken? She could not be sure, since Sade did not deign to reply nor even look at her. Her breathing stopped momentarily as she leaned the top half of her body toward him. Should she wave her arms? Should she rip off her clothes? Should she lay prostrate before him awaiting his wishes?
”But, Mr. Sade, I'm paid to clean the house and run errands. Lord knows I really don't have much in the way to clean here. You and your niece are quite tidy. Wish I could say that about my own family.” Cecelia felt her mother's eyes fix on her.
Sade took her mother's hands in his and kissed the back of each.
”Madame, you are too delicate to ruin your dainty doigts.” Sade brushed his lips across her mother's fingers. Her mother's face flushed a deeper red than Cecelia had ever seen before. ”Take the afternoon off, madame, and enjoy the apres-midi.”
”Yes, my uncle is right. You've been working too hard, Matilda. You and your daughter should do something together.”
Cecelia wanted to speak but found her mouth to be parched; her throat felt closed, knotted. An attempt to clear her throat brought on a raging bout of coughing. Her mother hurried the girl into the kitchen for a gla.s.s of water that the girl, racked by the hacking cough, spilled on herself.
”I think we should go home. Perhaps a nap would help.”
”Cecelia,” called Liliana. ”Cecelia, are you all right?” Liliana entered the kitchen. Immediately she pulled out a stool and forced Cecelia to sit. ”Go home,” Liliana whispered in the girl's ear. ”Go home and don't come back. Don't allow my uncle to win.”
Matilda could not hear the words, because they were said privately in a voice only sensitive hears could hear.
I will win, Cecelia kept repeating inside her head. I will win over you, Liliana. I will have your uncle.
The coughing stopped, but Cecelia's voice did not return immediately. He had silenced her, she knew, and probably would not allow her to speak again until she left his home, a home she intended to make her own.
Chapter 49.
”Release her, Uncle.”
”Who, ma chere?”
”Cecelia. You are stealing her life like you did mine.”
”Mais non; I made a terrible mistake with you by taking you all at once instead of having you slowly get used to the changes.”
”You offer nothing to her except isolation.”
”Mais, she would be with us. Never alone. Always desired.”
”Until you tire of her.”
”I have never tired of you, ma chere, even though you can be quite a tiresome bore.”
”Uncle, I've been to the local cemetery.”
”Visiting some neighbors?”
”They do exist.”
”Neighbors?”
”The malformed. The mindless vampires who are more ghoulish than we are.”
”Des goules? Nous? Enfant, you haven't looked in the mirror; there is nothing de goule about us.”
”The way we live is ghoulish. Drinking blood to survive is ghoulish.”
”And what about eating meat? What about the merveilleux steak tartare served in the best of restaurants? Thin ribbons of succulent beef lying raw on some sophisticate's plate. Or the blood puddings you used to delight in as a child? Ah! Mais a better a.n.a.logy may be small babies suckling at their mothers' b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Gaining life by taking from the mother. Just as a fetus does. We are born predators, mon enfant, born to diminish the already living so that we may grow.”
”Stop it!” Liliana screamed. ”How could you compare us to the innocents?”
”Innocents? Those mewling, wet, whining, writhing, spitting savages that grow into repulsive teens and abusive adults?” Sade dusted a fleck from his black linen s.h.i.+rt. ”Besides, we give far more forethought to our food than either the enfants or the poor wretches in the cemetery.”
”What if Cecelia should end up like those things in the cemetery?”
”She will if I abandon her now.” Sade sat on the love seat and pulled off his biker boots to rest his feet on the rug.
”You mean those creatures were never taken completely through the changes?”
”A guess on my part. However, she is already highly sensitive to the world around her. I feed her need for blood from my very own veins.” He unb.u.t.toned the cuffs of his s.h.i.+rt and rolled up his sleeves to show her his arms. No marks. There would be none. He would heal quickly. All she saw were the bulging veins running up the inside of both his arms. No doubt he had recently fed. ”I share like a nursing mother, suffering the twinges of pain for the tiny young one.”
”Dammit, Uncle. You're no martyr. How much pain must she suffer until you are satisfied? What wounds does she carry with her from day to day? What scars from your hand embellish her child-like skin?”
”Mon enfant, I hate scars. Non, non, that kind of play must wait until she is immortal like us.” He smiled. ”Then she will heal quickly and be able to endure far more... playtime.”
”Stop what you're doing to this girl.”
”I've already told you. It has gone too far too turn back. Her mort is a.s.sured.” He reached out to grab Liliana's left wrist, but she pulled away. ”Ah! Don't be jealous, mon enfant, you will always be the special one.”
”Jealous of a girl who is dying? You don't know me, Uncle. I don't envy anyone who must live as I do.”
Sade bit down on his right wrist. Blood spurted from the full veins. He stood and walked toward Liliana.
She felt herself cowering, moving back from the advancing steps he took, but she couldn't prevent her retreat. He reached out his right arm, and the smell of his blood fogged her mind until she realized he held her fast in the vice of his hand. She could feel the warm blood stain her scalp.
”Remember the taste, ma chere. Have you forgotten the sweetness of my blood? The strength my blood once gave to you? Mais non, I see the memory in your eyes. Replenish that memory now.” Sade loosened his grip on her hair and brought his wrist to her mouth, spreading the crimson across her lips.