9
After a long moment, I felt her stiffen. She was looking towards the square.
"Don't think of Nicolas," she said. "They are waiting and they are listening. They are hearing everything that goes on in our minds."
"But what are they thinking?" I whispered. "What is going on in their heads?"
I could feel her concentration.
I pressed her close, and looked straight at the silver light that came through the distant open doors. I could hear them too now, but just that low shimmer of sound coming from all of them collected there.
But as I stared at the rain, there came over me the strongest sense of peace. IL was almost sensuous. It seemed to me we could yield to them, that it was foolish to resist them further. All things would be resolved were we merely to go out to them and give ourselves over. They would not torture Nicolas, whom they had in their power; they would not tear him limb from limb.
I saw Nicolas in their hands. He wore only his lace shirt and breeches because they had taken the coat. And I heard his screams as they pulled his arms from the sockets. I cried out No, putting my own hand over my mouth so that I did not rouse the mortals in the church.
Gabrielle reached up and touched my lips with her fingers.
"It's not being done to him," she said under her breath. "It's merely a threat. Don't think of him."
"He's still alive, then," I whispered.
"So they want us to believe. Listen!"
There came again the sense of peace, the summons, that's what it was, to join them, the voice saying Come out of the church. Surrender to us, we welcome you, and we will not harm either of you if only you come.
I turned towards the door and rose to my feet. Anxiously Gabrielle rose beside me, cautioning me again with her hand.
She seemed wary of even speaking to me as we both looked at that great archway of silvery light.
You are lying to us, I said. You have no power over us! It was a rolling current of defiance moving through the distant door. Surrender to you? If we do that then what's to stop you from holding the three of us? Why should we come out? Within this church we are safe; we can conceal ourselves in its deepest burial vaults. We could hunt among the faithful, drink their blood in the chapels and niches so skillfully we'd never be discovered, sending our victims out confused to die in the streets afterwards. And what would you do, you who cannot even cross the door! Besides, we don't believe you have Nicolas. Show him to us. Let him come to the door and speak.
Gabrielle was in a welter of confusion. She was scanning me, desperate to know what I said. And she was clearly hearing them, which I could not do when I was sending these impulses.
It seemed their pulse weakened, but it had not stopped.
It went on as it had before, as if I'd not answered it, as if it were someone humming. It was promising truce again, and now it seemed to speak of rapture, that in the great pleasure of joining with it, all conflict would be resolved. It was sensuous again, it was beautiful.
"Miserable cowards, the lot of you." I sighed. I said the words aloud this time, so that Gabrielle could hear as well. "Send Nicolas into the church."
The hum of the voices became thin. I went on, but beyond it there was a hollow silence as if other voices had been withdrawn and only one or two remained now. Then I heard the thin, chaotic strains of argument and rebellion.
Gabrielle's eyes narrowed.
Silence. Only mortals out there now, weaving their way against the wind across the place de Grave. I didn't believe they would withdraw. Now what do we do to save Nicki?
I blinked my eyes. I felt weary suddenly; it was almost a feeling of despair. And I thought confusedly, This is ridiculous, I never despair! Others do that, not me. I go on fighting no matter what happens. Always. And in my exhaustion and anger, I saw Magnus leaping and jumping in the fire, I saw the grimace of his face before the flames consumed him and he disappeared. Was that despair?
The thought paralyzed me. Horrified me as the reality of it had done then. And I had the oddest feeling that someone else was speaking to me of Magnus. That is why the thought of Magnus had come into my head!
"Too clever..." Gabrielle whispered.
"Don't listen to it. It's playing tricks with our very thoughts," I said.
But as I stared past her at the open doorway, I saw a small figure appear. Compact it was, the figure of a young boy, not a man.
I ached for it to be Nicolas, but knew immediately that it was not. It was smaller than Nicolas, though rather heavier of build. And the creature was not human.
Gabrielle made some soft wondering sound. It sounded almost like prayer in its reference.
The creature wasn't dressed as men dress now. Rather he wore a belted tunic, very graceful, and stockings on his wellshaped legs. His sleeves were deep, hanging at his sides. He was clothed like Magnus, actually, and for one moment I thought madly that by some magic it was Magnus returned.
Stupid thought. This was a boy, as I had said, and he had a head of long curly hair, and he walked very straight and very simply through the silvery light and into the church. He hesitated for a moment. And by the tilt of the head, it seemed he was looking up. And then he came on through the nave and towards us, his feet making not the faintest sound on the stones.
He moved into the glow of the candles on the side altar. His clothes were black velvet, once beautiful, and now eaten away by time, and crusted with dirt. But his face was shining white, and perfect, the countenance of a god it seemed, a Cupid out of Caravaggio, seductive yet ethereal, with auburn hair and dark brown eyes.
I held Gabrielle closer as I looked at him, and nothing so startled me about him, this inhuman creature, as the manner in which he was staring at us. He was inspecting every detail of our persons, and then he reached out very gently and touched the stone of the altar at his side. He stared at the altar, at its crucifix and its saints, and then he looked back to us.
He was only a few yards away, and the soft inspection of us yielded to an expression that was almost sublime. And the voice I'd heard before came out of this creature, summoning us again, calling upon us to yield, saying with indescribable gentleness that we must love one another, he and Gabrielle, whom he didn't call by name, and I.
There was something naive about it, his sending the summons as he stood there.
I held fast against him. Instinctively. I felt my eyes becoming opaque as if a wall had gone up to seal off the windows of my thoughts. And yet I felt such a longing for him, such a longing to fall into him and follow him and be led by him, that all my longings of the past seemed nothing at all. He was all mystery to me as Magnus had been. Only he was beautiful, indescribably beautiful, and there seemed in him an infinite complexity and depth which Magnus had not possessed.
The anguish of my immortal life pressed in on me. He said, "Come to me. Come to me because only I, and my like, can end the loneliness you feel. It touched a well of inexpressible sadness." It sounded the depth of the sadness, and my throat went dry with a powerful little knot where my voice might have been, yet I held fast.
We two are together, I insisted, tightening my grip on Gabrielle. And then I asked him, Where is Nicolas? I asked that question and clung to it, yielding to nothing that I heard or saw.
He moistened his lips; very human thing to do. And silently he approached us until he was standing no more than two feet from us, looking from one of us to the other. And in a voice very unlike a human voice, he spoke.
"Magnus," he said. It was unobtrusive. It was caressing. "He went into the fire as you said?"
"I never said it," I answered. The human sound of my own voice startled me. But I knew now he meant my thoughts of only moments before. "It's quite true," I answered. "He went into the fire." Why should I deceive anyone on that account?
I tried to penetrate his mind. He knew I was doing it and he threw up against me such strange images that I gasped.
What was it I'd seen for an instant? I didn't even know. Hell and heaven, or both made one, vampires in a paradise drinking blood from the very flowers that hung, pendulous and throbbing, from the trees.