Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [171]
“Yes,” he answered. He was shaking violently. “I was . . . I was preparing to leave Venice,” he volunteered quickly. “As you advised.”
“I see that, and I thank you. But this is my question.” I spoke very slowly to him as I went on.
“In all of your study, did you ever hear tell of a woman blood drinker, a woman vampire as you call it—a woman with long rippling brown hair . . . rather tall and beautifully formed, a woman made in the full bloom of life rather than in the budding flower of youth . . . a woman with quick eyes, a woman who walks the night streets alone.”
All this quite impressed him and for a moment he looked away from me, registering the words, and then he looked back.
“Pandora,” he said.
I winced. I couldn’t prevent it. I couldn’t play the dignified man with him. I felt it like a blow to the chest.
I was so overcome that I walked a few paces away from him, and turned my back on him so that he could not see the expression on my face.
He knew her very name!
Finally I turned around. “What do you know of her?” I said. I searched his mind as he spoke for the truth of every word.
“In ancient Antioch, carved in stone,” he said, “the words, “Pandora and Marius, drinkers of the blood, once dwelt together in happiness in this house.’ “
I could not answer him. But this was only the past, the bitter sad past in which I’d deserted her. And she, full of hurt, must have inscribed the words in the stone.
That he and his scholars had found such a remnant left me humbled and respecting of what they were.
“But now,” I declared, “do you know of her now? When did you learn of her? You must tell me all.”
“In the North of Europe now,” he said, “there are those who say they have seen her.” His voice was growing stronger, but he was still quite afraid. “And once a young vampire, a young blood drinker, came to us, one of those who cannot bear the transformation. . . .”
“Yes, go on,” I said. “I know. You say nothing that is offensive to me. Continue, please.”
“The young one came, hoping we held some magic by which he might reverse the Blood and give him back his mortal life and his immortal soul. . . .”
“Yes, and he spoke of her? That’s what you mean to say?”
“Precisely. He knew all about her. He told us her name. He counted her a goddess among vampires. It was not she who made him. Rather coming upon him, she had pity on him, and often listened to his ravings. But he described her as you did. And he told us of the ruins in Antioch where we would find the words she’d written in the stone.
“It was she who spoke to him of Marius. And so the name came to be known to us. Marius, the tall one with the blue eyes, Marius whose mother came from Gaul and whose father was a Roman.”
He stopped, plainly afraid of me.
“Oh, go on, please, I beg you,” I said.
“This young vampire is gone now, destroyed by his own will without our compliance. He went out into the morning sun.”
“Where did he come upon her?” I asked. “Where did she listen to his ravings? When did this take place?”
“Within my lifetime,” he said. “Though I myself did not see this blood drinker. Please, do not press me too hard. I am trying to tell you all I know. The young vampire said that she was ever on the move, through the northern countries as I told you, but in the disguise of a rich woman, and with an Asian companion, a blood drinker of very great beauty and abrupt cruelty who seemed to oppress her nightly and force her into what she did not want to do.”
“I can’t bear it!” I declared. “Go on, tell me—what northern countries? I can’t read from your mind any faster than I can hear your words. Tell me all that the young one said.”
“I don’t know the countries in which she traveled,” he answered.
My passion was unnerving him.
“This young one, he loved her. He imagined that she would repel the Asian. But she would not. It drove him mad, this failure. And so, feeding upon the populace of a small German town, the young one soon blundered into our arms.”
He paused, to gather his courage and to make his voice steady as he went on.
“Within our