The second day was, if anything, longer than the first. Ardeth paced restlessly across her cell. Movement helped to keep her calm, if only in the illusion of activity. It also kept her warm; the cellar’s chill dampness seemed to have seeped into her bones.
Two days. It seemed like an eternity to her, an endless age of darkness and cold, punctuated only by the bright heat of fear. But outside the cell, two days was nothing. It was only Monday. She had no classes on Monday, no place she could be missed from, and no one to know she was gone from the safety of her routine. How many more days until someone missed her . . . and how long after that till they did anything about it?
How long until they make you put your arm through the bars again? the cruel voice in the back of her mind asked. She turned to push away that thought and failed. She stopped, closed her eyes against the waves of panic surging up through her mind, and took a deep, shuddering breath. The moment of terror passed, as they all did, unsustainable in the face of the endless hours, and she resumed her pacing.
The vampire (Rozokov, she reminded herself) was sleeping, face to the wall. Unconsciously, she paused in her restless movement to look at him. The intellectual elation she had felt at the discovery of his identity had worn off somewhat, blunted by his steadfast withdrawal from the world for the remainder of the previous night. So you know his name, so what? the cynical voice in her mind mocked. The two of you can now exchange pleasantries after he drinks your blood. It matters, she told herself resolutely. It makes a difference. For one thing, it was something Roias did not appear to know—or want her to know.
She settled back on her cot and retrieved an apple from the breakfast tray Wilkens had brought. She had finally worked up the nerve to talk to him. Now that, she reflected, had been an exercise in futility. She had asked the time, to which he had growled, “Don’t see what difference it makes to you.” There had been no response she could give to that, so she had watched in silence as he climbed the stairs back up into the light.
Later in the afternoon, another man had come down the stairs. He was younger than Roias and Wilkens, barely out of his teens, and had an awkward nervousness about him. His long brown hair and faded heavy metal band T-shirt made him look like one of the suburban high-school kids who hung out on Yonge Street in search of big-city excitement. The band’s leering skeletal mascot grinned across his chest at Ardeth.
He had ducked under the staircase and begun to hunt through the equipment stored there. He had been careful not to look at the vampire, but, watching him, Ardeth caught his curiously guilty glances at her. When he had at last emerged with a tangled handful of cables and started up the stairs towards the door, she thought that she could hear barely restrained relief in his steps. She had felt absurdly comforted to discover that someone else was afraid of the vampire.
There was a rustling sound from the next cell, as the vampire stirred, began to wake. At least, that’s what all the books and movies said; vampires can only rise after sundown. Of course, the same books and movies also said that vampires slept in coffins, feared crosses and garlic, and could turn themselves into bats or mist. The first and last were obviously myths; Rozokov had no coffin and if he were capable of transforming, he would undoubtedly have done so and escaped. She doubted somehow that crosses and garlic would have much effect.
She watched surreptitiously as he rose and walked to the length of the chain. He stared up at the door for a moment, then turned to pace towards her cell. Ardeth fought the impulse to shrink back against the wall. Instead, she sat very still and watched him.
He stared at her for a moment with pale, puzzled eyes. His gaze was devoid of the red hunger she feared. Talk to him, she thought. If you can make him talk to you, at the very least it’ll pass the time down here a lot faster. “Rozokov,” she said quietly, unable to think of anything else. Something moved under the gaze, flickering like a fish beneath the ice of a frozen river. She groped desperately for something to say, any line she could cast to draw that shadow of awareness to the surface. Something about him . . . something that would make him remember . . . Then she heard Tony’s voice, telling her more than she wanted to know about Renaissance magician-scientists. She had been more interested in the coincidence of their sponsorship than the details of his subject, but had been momentarily intrigued by the fact that magic and science were so intermingled in the past he studied, and so separate in the one she did. “Were you an astronomer?”
The lines around his face deepened as he frowned. “I . . .” The word was no more than a whisper, the faintest of tugs on the line she had thrown.
“Is that what you were, long ago? A scientist? A magician?” Ardeth persisted, keeping her voice low. She was suddenly aware of the strength of the hands hanging loose at his sides, remembering the mad, feral hunger that had burned in him two nights earlier. She felt her leg cramping beneath her and shifted a little to ease it.
The movement seemed to distract the vampire, whose gaze slipped from her face to her throat. She fought the urge to put her hands up to protect herself from his eyes. The hunger was returning, like a distant fire in the grey depths of his gaze.
Ardeth froze, torn between the desire to maintain the fragile link between them and her fear of his terrible, alien need. “Did you discover the secrets of the stars? Did you ever change lead into gold?” she asked. The questions drew his eyes back from the pulse in her throat and she struggled to identify the emotion lying beneath the icy gaze.
“No.” As he turned away, she heard the echoes of his eyes’ emotion in his voice and knew that it was sorrow.
The clank of his chain as he began to pace signalled the end of the conversation.
The young one, whose name she didn’t know, brought dinner. He was nervous, glancing edgily at the vampire, who continued his restless pacing. Ardeth was surprised when, rather than handing her tray through the door, he sidled into her cell, keeping as far from the adjoining cage as his pride would allow. He locked the door behind him.
“Dinner,” he announced brusquely and set the tray down on the floor by her cot.
“Where’s Wilkens?” she asked casually, emboldened by his entry into the cell.
“Busy.”
“What’s your name?”
“Peterson.”
“Thanks for dinner, Peterson.” He shrugged uncertainly, backing away from her. He was at the door, sliding back the bolt, when Ardeth stood up. She still had no real idea of what was going on, and Peterson was the only one of her captors who had shown any inclination to talk to her. “Wait . . .” He paused watching her. “Could you just talk to me for a minute. It’s lonely down here with just him.” Jesus, girl, you are so transparent, Ardeth thought, but Peterson’s nervousness was melting into uneasy interest. His eyes flickered over her as if gauging possible threat and reward.
“All right, but don’t try anything,” he warned.
“What would I try?” Ardeth asked. “I just get lonely down here. It’s pretty creepy.”
“Yeah,” Peterson breathed, his eyes drifting almost unwillingly to the oblivious vampire.
“I guess he,” she gestured with her head to the vampire, “must be pretty valuable.”
Peterson drew breath to answer, then the sound of the upper door opening sent him scrambling back through the cell door. He was busy locking the padlock and Ardeth had retreated to the cot when Roias started down the stairs.
“Well, good evening, Ms. Alexander. Good evening, Your Highness.” He looked at the pacing vampire, who made another savage, tigerish circuit of the cage without glancing up. “I think he’s hungry. What do you think?”
Ardeth shook her head uneasily, dreading the feverish glitter in his eyes. Even Peterson had shrunk away from him, retreating into the shows pooling at the base of the stairs.
“Well, I think he’s hungry. And I think he’s gonna stay that way a while yet. I think he’s getting a bit too energetic in there. Maybe a dose of the old ultrasound would do him some good.” The pacing stopped, the clank of the chain dying to a rattle. “Oh you understand that well enough, don’t you?”
Roias’s bright, hectic smile matched his glittering eyes. He’s on something, Ardeth realized, some drug that crystallized all his sadistic impulses into diamond resolve. “Come here, bitch!” he snapped suddenly and she stumbled to her feet. “Come here.” Ardeth forced herself to walk across the cell to stand by the door. “Give me your hand.” Seizing her wrist, he jerked her savagely forward, slamming her into the bars.
When Roias took the knife from his pocket, she started to struggle involuntarily. He won’t cut me, she told herself desperately. My blood’s too valuable, he won’t, he won’t . . .
When he did, she barely felt it, the quick, light cut that drew a line of rubies across her fingers. “Oh, Your Highness,” Roias crooned as he held up her bleeding hand,
Ardeth watched Rozokov’s head turn slowly. His eyes sparked, reflecting the blood, and he swallowed convulsively. “Want some? Of course you do. But in this case, the pleasure’s all mine.” Ardeth gasped in surprise as Roias took her fingers into his mouth and sucked away the blood. The touch made her skin crawl, made her soul shrink in a way even the vampire’s feeding had not.
Rozokov watched helplessly and Ardeth saw the long fingers clench. Roias lifted his head and laughed, squeezing Ardeth’s hand to make the blood blossom forth again. Then he dropped her hand and gestured to the silent Peterson. “Bring the ultrasound.” Peterson started nervously and, when Roias’s head half-turned, scrambled under the stairs to drag out the machinery. The drug-bright eyes focused back on Ardeth. “Put your hand into the cell.”
She remembered the vampire’s almost incoherent murmur about “a machine” and pain and suddenly realized Roias’s intention. He was going to torture Rozokov and use her blood as the lure. “Go on!” Roias snapped and she moved slowly forward, aware of Rozokov’s eyes on her. She put her shaking hand through the bars. The chain on the vampire’s ankle would not prevent him from reaching her outstretched hand and Roias knew it.
“There it is, Your Highness. All the sweet blood you want. Who knows, I might let you drain her dry. Or I might turn on the ultrasound,” he gestured with the narrow, wand-like device in his hand.
Ardeth watched Rozokov’s eyes fasten on her hand. His tongue slid out across his lips. “Don’t,” she breathed helplessly, though she was not sure whether the plea was aimed at Roias or the vampire. She could see the yearning in every line of Rozokov’s gaunt body, in the fearful light in his eyes.
Finally he moved. It was only a step, a shuffle really, but it was enough. Roias laughed and turned on the machine.
Rozokov screamed almost immediately, a wrenching, anguished howl that sent Ardeth staggering back from the bars to collapse on the floor. The vampire had fallen too, arms wrapped about his head, his face to the floor as if he sought to muffle his cries against the stone.
Ardeth willed herself not to scream in accompaniment but in the end, she was crying, her own hands over her ears to shut of the vampire’s agony.
Roias turned off the machine and Rozokov’s screams ended as suddenly as they had begun. In the silence, the only sound was Ardeth’s broken sobbing. “You feel sorry for him?” Roias inquired. “How touching. He’ll still kill you. Remember that.”
The cold words helped. She wiped her face and sat up, looking at Roias. I shouldn’t have cried, Ardeth thought. He mustn’t suspect I’ve talked to Rozokov, that I know who he is. She stumbled to her feet then to the edge of the cell.
“Don’t leave me down here please. Don’t leave me here. . . .” She was suddenly grateful for the tears she didn’t have to feign. Roias laughed and turned away, gesturing for Peterson to follow him up the stairs. “No, please, don’t leave me! Don’t leave me here with him!” Ardeth cried after the retreating backs until the final echoes of mocking laughter were cut off by the heavy slam of the upper door.
She felt her muscles fail her, relief crumpling her knees and leaving her to slide to the floor in the corner of the cell. She crouched there, shaking, while the echoes of screaming died in her ears. Roias was gone, gone without seeming to suspect that . . . That what? That he frightens you more than the monster in the next cell? That Rozokov may not be the mindless creature they’ve assumed? That she’d been trying, however clumsily, to get information from Peterson? Don’t let him come back, she prayed to the darkness. Let him find somewhere else to play out his sadistic urges.
There was a faint sound from the next cell and she turned to see the vampire still huddled on the floor. After a moment, she crawled unsteadily along the side of the bars to crouch across from him. “Rozokov,” she whispered his name like a talisman, the only tie she had to the brief moments when she had seen sanity in his eyes. “Rozokov. They’re gone. It’s all right, they’re gone.”
Slowly he moved, arms shifting to bare the grey head. She saw his shoulders shudder, heard the aching rasp of his breath. “Kill him . . . I will kill him,” he muttered at last, his voice as molten as the hunger-light in his eyes.
The ferocity of his voice frightened her, but Ardeth stayed where she was, waiting out the horrifying litany of the vampire’s sworn vengeance. At last, Rozokov lifted his head. There was a raw scrape from the stone floor on the arch of one cheekbone. His face looked old and gaunt, skin stretched taut over the skull. Ardeth shivered, the icy touch of fear feathering down her backbone.
“What,” he began, then coughed as if the words were caught in his throat. “What is your name?”
“Ardeth.”
“Ardeth . . . I thought so.” The red-reflecting eyes met hers. The fire in them had faded, leaving only dead, grey marble. He tried to pull himself to his knees but failed, balance shattered by the ultrasound. Ardeth watched him, torn between her memory of Suzy’s savaged throat and the echo of his pain in her ears. They keep him mad with torture and hunger, she thought slowly. Mad, he would certainly kill her. But sane . . . could he be persuaded not to? There was nothing she could do about the torture, but the hunger . . .
Ardeth realized that she was holding her wounded hand protectively against her stomach. The cut throbbed, but the blood had dried to a thin line. She should wash it now, in case it became infected. But . . . she looked at Rozokov again. His eyes were on her, watching her with dull curiosity. He’s weak, she thought suddenly. I could make him stop.
Hesitantly, she reached out her hand. It stopped, almost of its own accord, at the line of the bars, then she forced it through. The vampire’s gaze settled on her stained fingers and she heard his breath catch. “It’s all right. They’d make me do it eventually,” she said slowly, the reassurance more for herself than for him.
He crawled across the floor to the edge of the cell, the chain clanking behind him. Ardeth forced herself to keep still, but her hand was shaking and she had to bite her lip to keep herself from crying out when he began to lick her fingers.
There was not much blood left and after a moment he lifted his head. The pale face was strained and tight, the hunger shining like a light in his eyes. But he did not move to take more than she had offered, simply watched her face with desperate eyes.
When she turned her arm to bare her wrist to him, he let out a long, shuddering breath and bent back over her arm. He was restraining himself, she knew, pausing to draw her veins to the surface. The pain was a swift stab that stiffened her, then there was only the steady pressure of his feeding.
It feels so strange, Ardeth thought. I’m giving him life. Is this what mothers feel when their babies feed, this odd combination of maternal compassion and sexual desire? The realization that his hunger aroused her was suddenly terrifying and she started to pull back. Long fingers closed on her arm and held her still.
Shaking, already feeling the dizzy lassitude of blood loss, Ardeth leaned against the bars and watched him. It was easier this way, giving him her blood freely. She was not even frightened any more, drowning in the swells of pleasure and emotion that seemed to flow through her to the rhythm of his sucking. Even Roias couldn’t touch them now.
The thought of Roias jerked her from her hazy stupor, her heart racing with the enormity of what she had nearly allowed to happen. “Rozokov, stop,” she hissed, starting to pull her arm out of his grasp, thrusting against the bars to brace herself against the iron grip of his fingers. “Stop!” He lifted his head with a snarl, his fingers clenching cruelly around her wrist. The grey eyes glowed with blood-hunger, the upper lip curled back from eyeteeth as sharp as needles. There was blood on his mouth. “Rozokov,” Ardeth whispered in sudden terror.
After a moment, the madness began to drain away and she saw that the sharp angles of his face had softened a little. He looked closer to thirty now than sixty. “Ardeth.” Her name was the barest breath of sound. His grip on her arm loosened, though he did not let her go. His eyes searched her face for another moment, as if memorizing it, then he bent his head again. She caught her breath in fear but it was only his tongue that touched her, gently stroking the wounds on her wrist. His tongue slid across her cut fingers and she felt a distant throb of reluctant desire deep inside her.
Rozokov raised his head and curled her fingers within his own for a moment. “It will heal more quickly,” he said slowly and then pushed her limp arm back through the bars to her.
“Thank you,” she said automatically. “Are you . . . are you all right now?” She blinked as the world whirled before her eyes.
“You must eat. I was,” he paused, suddenly awkward, “careless.” His withdrawal was abrupt, just the ghost of a shadow across his face, then he was moving back towards the cot.
Ardeth watched him for a moment, then tried to stand. She barely managed to get up on her knees. Rozokov was right, she had to eat. She crawled leadenly to the tray and devoured the cold steak, washing it down with orange juice. She ate the chocolate bar slowly, with the thin blanket around her shoulders, waiting to stop shivering.